Tuesday, November 10, 2009

FOCUS, TRINITY

(Bill David Barnett, age 2.5, and Maggie, age 5, trailer park in Pecos, Texas, summer 1961)

Today my little brother Bill would have turned 51.

Which means he's been dead almost 9 years. Can't quite understand that.

He was waiting for health insurance to kick in at his new job: We'd watched how medical costs had starved our family when we were kids. So instead of being saddled with a "pre-existing condition", he lay down alone on that green-and-white striped couch and watched TV as a heart attack rolled on into cardiac tamponade and he bled out into his chest.

Universal health care for every human being, no questions asked, without profit linked to medical choices. Now. Get rid of any leader who caves, no matter what other distractions they toss up. The alternative is ongoing pointless death.

[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

4 comments:

Blue said...

I'm so sorry, Maggie. This health care "system" is fucking unbelievable.

kat said...

hugs and love.

Was is Jesse who said that so long as we're talking about care and they're talking about insurance we're fucked?

Anonymous said...

Maggie...I'm so glad you are doing better. What a scare!! Kat has kept me up to date on what's been going on with you. We hold you in our hearts.
eleni---Kat's mom

little gator said...

Ow im anher of the uninsured. MY doc keps wondering why i refuse to take lipitor, whic ich is way exoenseive, ad ownt take other statins, caue they give me killer headacjes.