More Americans Dying from Lack of Health Care Than from 9/11 Attacks on the World Trade Center

With all the health care reform wheeling and dealing going on among the Washington power-brokers, it is hard to find anyone - outside the "liberal media" who is putting a human face on all of this.

This is not about insurance companies or Joe Lieberman's - my way or the high way threats. Nor is it about who wants to do whatever they can to make the President look bad - regardless of who else it hurts.

This is about a Rand Hoson, a self-employed man in Kansas City who had two heart attacks and gets no treatment or medication because he is uninsurable. It's about Nicole Able, a young woman with type one diabetes, whose family had to do a fundraiser to pay for her health care because she has no insurance. It's about a woman who was laid off from Citibank who needs a mammogram.

Eve Gittelson shared her first hand experience at the recent Kansas City Free Health Care Clinic, then wrote a story titled, "We're Dying Slowly": A Working American Pleads for Health Care..."

After slamming Senator Claire McCaskill, Joe Lieberman and other anti-reformers, Gittelson said, "It's hard to convey the heartbreak I witnessed at every bend in the road while I was at the Kansas City Free Health Clinic.."

"Most of the people I met were working people. Eighty-three percent of the people who come to these clinics are employed. But over and over and over, I heard about unaffordable junk insurance, unaffordable premiums, and obscene co-pays."

"During these very difficult economic times, the choice always comes down to food, clothing, and heat - or insurance and health care. I also repeatedly heard people say that when they had insurance, they still got stuck with the bills, so what's the point of having insurance? Yes, we all know about that scam."

For millions of Americans, lack of health care is not about getting a government hand out; it's about staying live. And what should America do when Americans lose their jobs and the insurance that went with it?

Believe it or not - we are letting them die.

Who does not have a neighbor, or a friend, or a former co-worker who needs to see a doctor but simply can't afford it?

When Senator Joe Lieberman sits smugly in his chair threatening to block opportunity for millions of uninsured Americans, it is difficult to overlook his potential motives.

If we continue to ignore the dying from lack of health care, it will continue to kill more Americans than the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and the number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan - so far.

Access to a sloppy, wasteful health care system is better than no access at all.