I was at the Free Health Clinic in Hartford Connecticut yesterday. The outrage you witnessed from Ed Schultz is really the only emotion possible you can have after witnessing our American healthcare catastrophe up close and personal.
It's simply indescribable to walk through this vast convention center and see the blue cloth drapes barely affording patients the privacy and dignity we are all entitled to, and not feel deep and overwhelming anger at the political class for allowing this deplorable and amoral situation to go unaddressed for so goddamn long.
So yesterday, Ed simmering rage, boiled over. You witnessed a primal scream. His was the appropriate reaction to this national calamity, which the political class won't even take a look at.
You need take only one loop around the perimeter of a massive American convention center transformed into a MASH clinic to feel the overwhelming sense of disgust which Ed conveyed.
And since the entitled political class feels no compulsion to come and bear witness to the fruits of their morally deplorable conduct. Here it is for the world to see.
Meet Nicole Lamoureux, the heroine and executive director of the National Association of Free Health Clinics describing being repeatedly and serially smacked in the face, with very invitation her organization extends to the politicians to see the reality of the lives of their constituents.
Note: Listen at the end of the tape (which I forgot to turn off), Nicole's utter disgust and that they are working to find a location to set up in Washington.
"We extend invitations to all the members of Congress, but they never come"
Here Dr. Giuseppe Del Priore and Dr. Ralph Frieden describe their reactions to treating so many patients denied healthcare, and suffering from illnesses which frequently are easy and cheap to treat, simply due to the fact that they are uninsured, and healthcare in the United States is a privilege not a right.
Dr. Del Priore: "Unnecessary suffering, unnecessary anxiety for the patients, unnecessary illnesses because they're all treatable and managed in a modern developed world setting where everyone has access to care, where you can get the simplest, least expensive and oldest medications . . ."
Dr Frieden: "The principle is very simple, everyone should have access to medical care. Period."
This was the patient Dr. Del Priore was describing in the interview above. This American citizen required some inexpesnive medication, but was uanble to get it, simply because she had no insurance. Now she'll get very expensive care at a local Connecticut (Joe Lieberman, you are responsible for this), hospital.
THIS IS WHAT THE POLITICIANS DON'T WANT TO LOOK AT. DON'T BE COWARDS, LOOK THESE PEOPLE IN THE EYE AND EXPLAIN YOUR DEPRAVED,CORRUPT AND MORALLY INDEFENSIBLE BEHAVIOR.
And meet two mothers, who've both lost their jobs. These courageous woman want simply to protect their children, and in Joe Lieberman's Connecticut, that ain't easy.
This is Natasha Skretchen.
And this is Betsy Case, Betsy has high blood pressure and a young child.
Hang you head in shame, Joe Lieberman, just hang your head in shame.
We must all commit to getting rid of this despicable man Joe Lieberman in 2012.