This Is My America, Mr. President and Mr. Speaker

I want you both to see the America I see in my lower middle class neighborhood here in Denver. This morning I drove down the block and saw three homes in foreclosure. I drove by the local park and saw a handsome young hispanic man carrying a backpack with bedroll on top. He had those Mayan features of many of our local Hispanic men and women. His hair was long and his skin has turned much darker over this summer because he lacks a place to live. I've never seen him beg but I see the sadness in his eyes every time I pass him. Being a combat vet myself I'm sure I see a thousand yard stare of another combat vet. Only he would be a vet of your making Mr. President and Mr. Speaker.

After the park I went to one of our busy intersections at Evans and Sheridan. While waiting for a light to change I look across the intersection and see a tall black man probably in his fifties. He's wearing a green tee shirt like the Marines wore in Vietnam. Like I wore back in 1968. There's holes in the shirt on the back. His jeans have holes in the knees. He's wearing a tattered pair of sneakers held together by duct tape. He carries a bedroll. His back is bent and he's limping down Sheridan. His face is unshaven and he looks weary and sad. His face has a stare of someone trying to ignore the pain, trying to dissociate himself from his reality of poverty and hopeless dreams of the future.

I stop by a local 7-11 to get a cup of coffee to wake myself up. I am already saddened by what I've seen in my "hood" today. When I come out of the 7-11, I see the black man limping across the driveway. I think about approaching him to ask if I could give him some money but I don't because I'm living pay check to pay check myself.

I drive down Sheridan to the local King Soopers grocer a mile away. After finishing up my shopping and returning to my car, I see this black American again walking through the parking lot. I've not once seen him beg. What I see up close is despair. I feel like sobbing, Mr. Speaker, Mr. President.

As I drive around the Harvey Park neighborhood I see panhandlers on every busy corner with signs asking for money. Some say, "help, I lost my job", some "Veteran needs help". Each sign has an individual story. Sure some are phony and the men and women on those corners are struggling with addictions but do you really think this is how these Americans want their lives to be, Mr. President and Mr. Speaker? Any one who thinks these are lazy people should stand on a corner and beg for help all day. I suggest you both try it sometime.

Yesterday I got an email from a friend who happens to be a professor at University of Colorado. She had asked me to help her help a friend who had been diagnosed with cancer. The friend was an attorney who had lost her home in a wildfire in one of the canyon areas near Boulder, Co. In addtion to losing her home, she had been back east to find a long term care facility for her elderly mother struggling with dementia. She also had a son who had been autistic all his life and required special care. Despite all the troubles of Stephanie's life she was able to go to school when she was in her thirties and passed the bar exam to become an attorney. She specialized in rights for the disabled. Not exactly an area for big money like you both gained from your degrees. But her son gave her a passion to help those who are disabled in this state because too often they are slipping through bureaucratic cracks caused by budget cuts in the state. The cuts came as a result of reduced federal help.

Besides having cancer, Stephanie was without healthcare benefits. The fire and her struggle with placing her mom had caused her to let expensive individual insurance lapse. My friend asked me if I had any thoughts of where Stepanie could go for her care.

I had tried talking with many of my associates and friends at the local mental health center I work at. They all gave me the same basic information that I had already given my friend. The Colorado Indigent Care Program was where they all said to start. The problem with CICP is they are overrun with Americans without insurance and needing care. Their budget has been cut due to the fiscal problems created by you two, Congress and the bankers and brokers you are so protective of in all that you do.

I had emailed my professor friend the information from my associates yesterday. The email I got back....the one I first mentioned....informed me Stephanie had died the day before, August 12th. So, there is where your great ideas for health care reform has gone to help people like Stephanie Mr. President and Mr. Speaker. We see a 46 year old American die before her autistic son and her mother with dementia because she waited too long to get the care she needed. Waited because she couldn't afford the bills she knew would come if she sought care. First she lost her son, then her home, then her mom and finally her life. Is this the America you two are telling us you want?

At my work recently I had a patient admitted to the crisis facility I am the RN for. The patient was suicidal in large part because of her medical problems. She had recently had a kidney transplant at the University of Colorado med school. She was indigent but the med school had gone ahead and done the transplant. Unfortunately they hadn't made sure my patient could secure the medication needed to prevent rejection of her new kidney. Even though she had been able to secure Medicaid/Medicare the copay for the medication was in the hundreds of dollars. My client was impoverished after she paid for a place to live and food.

I called, emailed and faxed information all around the Denver metropolitan area attempting to find a way to get the medication for my patient. All the efforts failed and I do know how to work the bureucratic mazes for my patients. My patient was discharged without ever securing the funds to pay her copay for her medication to protect her new kidney.

Given the time I could easily tell you both hundreds of stories like these. This is my America, Mr. President and Mr. Speaker. You both haven't a clue what the majority of Americans are going through. You both fail to serve as you claim you want to do because you are far too busy ensuring the rich contributors to your reelections are happy. You both have been complicit in widening the wealth gap between the poor and the advantaged rich. You claim reform is necessary but all you seek to do is further enrich the wealthy.

There are two Americas Mr. President and Mr. Speaker. Howard Zinn eloquently spelled it out in his writing. The two Americas are the haves and the have-nots and you both are guilty of betraying the have-nots. I truly wonder how you both live with the betrayals you and your colleagues in D.C. have inflicted upon the America I see every day.



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