Resume Entry #2 - Anonymous, MA - 10/10/03

Somewhere it's written about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There's been plenty of discussion over just what that means, but increasingly I don't feel as if we're getting our share of it, and are getting less all the time in our US healthcare system.

Life: I had a friend die this year. She had been feeling ill for weeks, and finally just spent a lot of time in bed. She was a professional (consultant) with 2 jobs, but had no health care. We're being told to go for hospital emergency room treatment if it's a crisis, but without any resource to maintenance care, it's hard to decide if/when it's that bad. She died last spring at 48 of a heart condition. The patching and excuses go on, but I will never be able to replace this friend. She didn't get 'Life' as promised, and her friends have lost that life too.

Liberty:More and more seem unable to have the liberty of getting the health care they need. People work, but it's not offered by their job(s). It's getting too expensive to afford. It's not there for the self-employed and the long term unemployed. More services are not covered.

The primary goal of our 'market economy' health system is to avoid coverage for anyone who needs health services! Health care is a shell game between politics, pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance industry. What's so "expensive" seems to be going down a drain of advertising, administration, fraud, and profit. We don't have the 'Liberty' of having our dollars go to accessible health care that serves the health care needs of our people. Politicians are concerned about increases in taxes, but the cost of Living - literally and figuratively - is going up and nothing constructive is being done about it.

Pursuit of Happiness: We seem to be pursuing a plan of more and more patches on a broken (not breaking - broken) health system, not a comprehensive overhaul and solution to this problem. And I'm not pursuing any happiness about that.

- Anonymous, Massachusetts
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