MSNBC partnered with the National Association of Free Clinics to put on a health care clinic this past weekend in the New Orleans Convention Center:
The transcript is here. Some highlights of essay written by Countdown's Senior Producer Rich Stockwell:
Eighty-three percent of the patients they see are employed, they are not accepting other government help on a large scale, not "welfare queens" as some would like to have us believe. They are tax-paying, good, upstanding citizens who are trying to make it and give their kids a better life just like you and me.
Ninety percent of the patients who came through Saturday's clinic had two or more diagnoses.
Eighty-two percent had a life-threatening condition such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or hypertension. They are victims of a system built with corporate profits at its center, which long ago forgot the moral imperative that should drive us to show compassion to our fellow men and women.
Health reform is not about Democrats or Republicans or who can score political points for the next election, it's about people. It's about fairness and justice in a system that knows none. I'd defy even the most hardened capitalist-loving-conservative to do what I did on Saturday and continue to pretend that the system in place right now is working.
How about it, Senator Landrieu? How do YOU respond to the question Mr. Stockwell ends his damning essay with:
"What does it say about us as a nation of people who can live in a country so rich and yet allow this to continue?"
Well? Let's call her and find out:
Washington D.C.: (202) 224-5824 New Orleans: (504) 589-2427 Baton Rouge: (225) 389-0395 Shreveport: (318) 676-3085 Lake Charles: (337) 436-6650
