Regina Holliday is fighting for her life. For her children's lives. It is too late for her husband. He is dead, thanks to the tragic neglect that America's current health care system inflicts upon its citizens.
From the Washington Post:
Regina Holliday will always remember the day the Senate took up health-care reform seven weeks ago. It was the day her husband died.
At home in the family's apartment on Connecticut Avenue NW, Fred Holliday succumbed to kidney cancer at age 39. He probably had had the disease for years, but with no health insurance, he couldn't afford the tests that might have explained the night sweats, fatigue and bloody urine. By the time he finally got a job that came with health coverage and got the tests he needed, it was too late: The cancer had spread and was inoperable.
These days you can usually find Regina Holliday in a parking lot between the BP station and the CVS near the Politics and Prose bookstore. She's painting a 20-foot-high mural, showing her husband on his deathbed, to draw attention to the failings of the health system.
Lawmakers hurrying home for their August vacations probably won't stop by to see Holliday on her ladder. But just as the 37-year-old widow will never forget June 17 -- the day the Senate health committee debate began and the day her husband's life ended -- members of Congress should keep another date in mind: Aug. 31. That's the day Holliday and her two boys, 3 and 10 years old, will lose their health coverage. Again.
Holliday, who worked in a toy store and now teaches art to preschoolers, took out her brushes a few minutes after 6 a.m. Tuesday. She pointed out the elements taking form on the gas station wall: a list of her husband's medications, a distracted doctor talking on his cellphone, another doctor tied in rope and standing in medical waste. Her husband, on a cot, holds a note he has written to his wife: "Go after them, Regina. Love, Fred."
"That's what he told me to do," she explained. "That's what I'm doing."
What can you do? Contact your legislators. Talk to your neighbors. Tell everyone you know that the corrupt and greedy insurance industry will not win this time. Do not listen to the lies that are being bought and paid for by the opponents of a public option. Demand health care for all people, not just the rich.
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This is the kind of story that needs to be told.