A wonderful Kossack named Rogneid brought this uniquely American and deeply demoralizing story to my attention.
You can honestly mutter in revulsion as you read this, "only in America".
Though some Americans are able to cobble together a little healthcare. Others succumb.
But don't take my word.
Do heed the grim statistic from the highly-regarded Institute of Medicine . "Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States."
I want to tell you what goes through my mind when I read crap like this. I think our country, the leadership, our elected representatives are without an ethical center, a moral compass or a sense of shame. Personally, I feel nothing but anguish and despair for our nation. And I wonder why the American people tolerate such a primitive and Third World state of affairs to exist in the 21st century.
Hi Eve;
I know that's sounds drastic, but that is exactly what is happening to this one man.
I met Chris through the internet and have followed his journey from the point he was diagnosed to the present time. There are many people on the Oroboros and Prophecies.us board who are praying for him, and I hope you are able to help. While I've never met him by person, I know him through the web and his situation is breaking my heart. I can't even imagine what his wife feels like.
These links are for the interviews he did with a local Louisville station.
He is being denied medicaid and foodstamps for being $27.00 a month over income. His income? SSDI payments.
I don't know about you, but I look at pornography like this and say, there but for the grace of God go I.
In America, where healthcare is not a right but a privilege, we form internet prayer circles. We do this because the government denies us access to healthcare--what should be, and what is, in the rest of the civilized world, a basic human right.
Meet Chris Whitmer-Part 1
This is Chris and his wife in their mobile home. Chris was a hard working, tax-paying American. Then he got sick.
I'm not good at conveying the outrage I feel as I write these diaries. Days like today, I just tremble and hang my head in shame.
A Louisville man with terminal heart failure is without medical care after his Medicaid coverage was cancelled.
Even if it’s unlikely your family will ever be faced with this kind of crisis, the family of Chris Whitmer is hoping that you care about his plight. Yes, the government does have programs to help the poor with their medical care, but Whitmer says he makes about $27 too much per month to qualify for the care that could save his life.
"It’s eye opening. It’s shocking. It’s disturbing," says Chris Whitmer.
One year ago, he was fine; pulling pallets and unloading trucks for Kroger. But when his wife Harriett returned home from surgery for her Crohn’s disease one day last March, she found him collapsed on their floor. Out of the blue, Chris was diagnosed with end stage heart failure.
"Patients who have this degree of heart failure the doctors told us, don’t last very long," says Harriett.
But there was a sliver of hope. The family was already on Medicaid. After Chris’s first pacemaker had problems, a second surgery gave him a pacemaker/defibrillator and he started the workups to see if he would qualify for a heart transplant.
But when he needed it most, Chris’ Medicaid coverage was terminated because his family income exceeds Medicaid limits. According to Harriett Whitmer, their income exceeded the limits by something like $27, less than $30 per month.
The family live off of Social Security and disabilities solely. Chris and their two children all draw disability based on Chris’ employment history. Because their daughter was diagnosed with autism, her disability payment is higher. But the family total is still under $2000 per month.
http://www.whas11.com/...
Part 2
We're in the midst of what I consider my last presidential campaign. But nyceve, surely you're too young to consider this the end of the road. Well, in my little simplistic mind, I just know there's no way this country can survive four more years of Republican destruction. I'm positive of this.
If we don't win in November, we're finished. Certainly, the millions of American's just like Chris are finished.
I'd request that any of you who may meet Senator Obama or Senator Clinton on the campaign trail, ask them about Chris Whitmer and the tens of millions just like him.
Could you do that, please?