There's a simple standard that SEIU uses to measure the success of the health care system: how does it work for our members--like for Pat DeJong and her family? By that standard, without a doubt, our current system is failing. Fortunately, we have a president who agrees that healthcare reform is critical for this country and says he is confident of passing healthcare reform.
Tonight, Obama will continue his health care push with a primetime nationally televised event in the White House called "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," which will be moderated with ABC's Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer. Home care aide and SEIU Healthcare 775NWmember Pat DeJong has been invited to participate in the ABC News special event, to discuss health care reform with President Obama. The president will answer questions offered by audience members from all walks of life "selected by ABC News who have divergent opinions in this historic debate," and Pat will most likely be the only home care worker present.
Here is just a small excerpt of Pat's story. This is why ABC News asked her to participate in the event:
Pat and her husband Dan were ranchers in Montana, but had a hard time finding affordable coverage, and were uninsured when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000. The medical bills piled up for Pat and Dan, eventually forcing them to sell the land they loved and that had been in Dan's family for generations. Dan succumbed to cancer, and two years later, Pat still does not have health insurance.Reflecting on what it has been like to live without health insurance - and keeping in mind what she and her husband went through - she said, "I have been without [health insurance] for so long, I have just put it out of my head."
One thing is clear: families like Pat's pay the ultimate price for our broken healthcare system. Her story--like so many other Americans without adequate coverage--stands as one more reason we cannot accept the obstructionist politics of those who wish to file hundreds of amendments to "just say no" to healthcare reform, and purposely distort the reality of what fixing healthcare means to millions of American families.
Watch the ABC News special "Questions for the President: Prescription for America" tonight, June 24, at 10:00 p.m. (EST). The healthcare conversation will be continued at 11:35 p.m. on Nightline.
Read Pat's story--told in her own words--after the break.
My name is Pat DeJong and I'm a home care worker in Libby, Montana. I wasn't always a home care worker. When my husband Dan was alive, we had a ranch in southwest Lincoln County. Dan was the fourth generation of DeJongs to run the 500-acre ranch. He grew up on the property and he worked hard every day of his life. He donated much of the ranch to the Montana Land Reliance program to protect the land and ensure the land would remain the way he remembered it from his childhood.
When he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000, we didn't have healthcare. My husband never took a handout and we thought we could handle our bills without assistance. This was how we had always lived.
Soon, however, medical bills started piling up. Swallowing his pride, Dan made what he called the hardest decision of his life and filed for food stamps and Medicaid. We were denied food stamps and told the only way he could be eligible for Medicaid was to put a lien on our ranch. We were forced to sell our land, something my husband's family had been able to avoid for four generations, because his medical bills spiraled out of control. The cancer ravaged my husband's body, but selling our ranch to pay for medical costs broke his spirit.
It's been two years since Dan passed away and I still don't have healthcare. As a home care worker, I provide for the most vulnerable citizens in my community. But every American without healthcare is vulnerable to exorbitant costs.
We need reform and we need it now.
