What angers me the most about this incredible story (MN bridge victims)...

[IronLionZion]

Crystal Manning and her fiance Michael Stoner had just had the worst morning of their lives.

Wednesday morning Crystal's two-year-old daughter, Emmaline, had fallen down the steps at their home in Spooner, Wisconsin. She was airlifted with a concussion to Minneapolis. The couple was rushing to her hospital room when they crossed the I-35W bridge and heard a horrible roar.

"It was just this unreal rumble," Michael recalled. "There was that first metallic bang, and then it sounded like an earthquake."

In seconds, the couple saw the far end of the bridge buckle, then drop, sending dozens of cars ahead of them tumbling over the edge. Soon, they too felt the bridge give way beneath them, sending them free falling into the Mississippi River.

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Fund to help the couple with medical expenses.
Crystal Manning Fund
Shell Lake State Bank
PO Box 130
Shell Lake, Wisconsin 54871

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=261202

...is that last part. In this country, people need a charitable fund to help with their medical expenses. Did you take a look at the victims? Do you think the Hispanic kids on that youth group bus have health insurance? Other than the initial life-saving emergency treatment, I don't believe the state of Minnesota is helping anyone with anything like follow up care, physical therapy, medicines, etc.

Minnesota is supposedly one of the best states for health care coverage so let me know if they are helping. Oh, and please raise my taxes...please. I want my taxes raised NOW DAMN IT! I don't want my taxes going to defense contractors to get rich, but I sure-as-hell want my taxes going to my fellow Americans to have health care, safe bridges, and public transportation because that benefits me personally too. (Who hasn't driven on a bridge or been to the hospital?) We're not really free if we fear for our lives and our health just because we don't have the money to pay for it individually. Why fear the terrorists when we have politicians killing us right here at home (both parties)?

[Bitwit1234]

1. The State of Minnesota has incredible Health Insurance for those in need

Unlike a lot of other states they have Minnesota Care. Of course you pay a monthly fee. But for that fee you get a prescription plan, medical and hospital care. You have to make under a certain salary. But that is understandable.

[Benhurst]

3. Good for Minnesota. But health care should be for all.

We need universal health care now, such as available in every other country in the industrial world. And while we're at it, single-payer health care. The "insurance" companies have robbed us blind.

[malaise]

2. Good post

Hubby's niece graduated and returned home from the university up the road in May. She is still in shock wondering about her friends and lecturers.

We were taking about this last night and I suggested that the major health care costs from this disaster will be linked to lifetime back and other spinal injuries.

Do school buses have seat belts yet? If not even those kids have injuries coming that they can't afford. They may be luckier than most of the others since swimming does strengthen back muscles, but no one falls that distance without back or spinal injuries. I imagine that most survivers are in serious pain today.