Post by hollister on Dec 7, 2007 12:07:31 GMT -7
I can not tell you how often these thoughts have run through my mind since June. I may have escaped the quick death sentence - but if I allowed to work to maintain my health, am I sentenced instead to a long drawn out death sentence?
This post is titled, "My friend, a breast cancer survior commited suicide yesterday"
after going through a year of surgery, chemo and radiation that left her terribly burned
after fighting, suffering and ultimately recovering and getting on with her life
after living with the worries of recurrence, going through regular check ups and taking her medicine to prevent recurrence
after lobbying Congress for billions for breast cancer research and screening for other women
after doing all those things she lost her own job and with it, her health care coverage
She's having trouble finding a new job, in spite of her skills. No one wants to hire someone whose health care history will likely cause their premiums to skyrocket.
No one wants to hire a cancer survivor. No insurance company wants to cover them. Buy a policy and pay out of pocket? If you're a cancer survivor it will cost close to $2000 per month.
Everyone wants to raise billions for research, everyone wants to raise billions for mammograms. But once you've been diagnosed with breast cancer, no one gives a nuts. Corporations fall all over themselves to plaster pink ribbons on every product, then give the money to those who have never had nor probably never will have breast cancer.
The burden of living with the fear of recurrence is bad enough. Trying to face it with no insurance is impossible for some.
Yet its highly unlikely someone like my friend will get access to "universal health care coverage" for a very long time. Everyone else will get covered first - pregnant women, children, drug addicts, seniors, "families". Dem leaders would rather pay for dental and chiropractic care than cancer treatment.
See, the GOP doesn't care about access to health care and the Democrats only care about giving it to people who have a job or fall into one of the categories above.
If you're a single adult who has worked hard all your life, raised your kids and paid your taxes, you have to get in line to get on the health care reform train. If you're all of the above AND a cancer survivor, you get to go to the end of the line. Health care advocates predict it will take at least 10 YEARS before real health care reform reaches cancer survivors.
What kind of a society "celebrates survivors" and refuses to treat them? What kind of Democrats talk the talk about research and finding a cure, but turn away and leave the room when you start talking about providing health care coverage to uninsured cancer survivors?
Every cancer survivor deserves equal treatment, deserves to be treated as a valuable human being whose life has meaning. My party isn't doing that. Most of my party's candidates don't have a health care reform plan that will keep women like my friend from despair when they lose health insurance.
Tonight, to all my Democratic party elected officials, on behalf of my friend who gave up hope and nearly died and on behalf of all my breast cancer survivor friends who don't have health insurance and live with this worry today - I spit on you, I condemn you, I hate you, I hope you burn in hell. I have tried to convince you in every possible way for the last 7 years to fix this problem and you have turned your backs and made excuses.
I'm not going to make "nice" anymore. I will haunt you to the end of your days if your laziness and lack of vision and initiative hurts one more of my fellow breast cancer survivors.
This post is titled, "My friend, a breast cancer survior commited suicide yesterday"
after going through a year of surgery, chemo and radiation that left her terribly burned
after fighting, suffering and ultimately recovering and getting on with her life
after living with the worries of recurrence, going through regular check ups and taking her medicine to prevent recurrence
after lobbying Congress for billions for breast cancer research and screening for other women
after doing all those things she lost her own job and with it, her health care coverage
She's having trouble finding a new job, in spite of her skills. No one wants to hire someone whose health care history will likely cause their premiums to skyrocket.
No one wants to hire a cancer survivor. No insurance company wants to cover them. Buy a policy and pay out of pocket? If you're a cancer survivor it will cost close to $2000 per month.
Everyone wants to raise billions for research, everyone wants to raise billions for mammograms. But once you've been diagnosed with breast cancer, no one gives a nuts. Corporations fall all over themselves to plaster pink ribbons on every product, then give the money to those who have never had nor probably never will have breast cancer.
The burden of living with the fear of recurrence is bad enough. Trying to face it with no insurance is impossible for some.
Yet its highly unlikely someone like my friend will get access to "universal health care coverage" for a very long time. Everyone else will get covered first - pregnant women, children, drug addicts, seniors, "families". Dem leaders would rather pay for dental and chiropractic care than cancer treatment.
See, the GOP doesn't care about access to health care and the Democrats only care about giving it to people who have a job or fall into one of the categories above.
If you're a single adult who has worked hard all your life, raised your kids and paid your taxes, you have to get in line to get on the health care reform train. If you're all of the above AND a cancer survivor, you get to go to the end of the line. Health care advocates predict it will take at least 10 YEARS before real health care reform reaches cancer survivors.
What kind of a society "celebrates survivors" and refuses to treat them? What kind of Democrats talk the talk about research and finding a cure, but turn away and leave the room when you start talking about providing health care coverage to uninsured cancer survivors?
Every cancer survivor deserves equal treatment, deserves to be treated as a valuable human being whose life has meaning. My party isn't doing that. Most of my party's candidates don't have a health care reform plan that will keep women like my friend from despair when they lose health insurance.
Tonight, to all my Democratic party elected officials, on behalf of my friend who gave up hope and nearly died and on behalf of all my breast cancer survivor friends who don't have health insurance and live with this worry today - I spit on you, I condemn you, I hate you, I hope you burn in hell. I have tried to convince you in every possible way for the last 7 years to fix this problem and you have turned your backs and made excuses.
I'm not going to make "nice" anymore. I will haunt you to the end of your days if your laziness and lack of vision and initiative hurts one more of my fellow breast cancer survivors.
