On Nataline Sarkysian,visibly angered Edwards, "we're not negotiating..."

by: wade norris

Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 11:58:22 AM EST

John Edwards tonight cited the case of a 17-year-old California girl who died after her insurance company refused coverage on a liver transplant to save her life as a call to action to change the current system of healthcare in America.

Nataline Sarkysian died last night at UCLA Medical Center after complications arose from a bone marrow transplant to treat her leukemia. Her insurance provider, CIGNA Healthcare, first denied the potentially lifesaving transplant, but relented after a loud public protest and outrage. By that time, though, Sarkysian passed away before the procedure could be performed.

"Are you telling me that we're gonna sit at a table and negotiate with those people?" asked a visibly angered Edwards, challenging the health care companies. "We're gonna take their power away and we're not gonna have this kind of problem again."

Tonight, before reading this, I was reading a book on Mother Jones, and her tireless effort to stand up against the powerful corporate interests that put our lives underneath the CEO pay. As I read about Nataline, I felt that we were repeating history. Additionally, I read and saw the interview with the Lakey family on their daughter Valerie, who was injured by a pool drain that could have been replaced if not for the drive for corporate profits. Then I listened to Doug Bishop who was hoping for a champion to stand for his family and generations of people who were affected by the loss of their job at the Maytag plant, all so that a CEO could make their profits.

Thankfully, as Mother Jones stood for the working men, women, and children of her day, we have a voice for us today, people like Mother Jones, and that voice is John Edwards.

http://johnedwards.com/watch/d...

http://blog.johnedwards.com/st...

UPdate I saw this article in NY Times, which is quite relevant. What occurs to me, is that when people fight for change, the course of human events seem to fall into place to help them get their message across, to lift the voice of the voiceless above the sound of the noisy fray.
Mind you - this article was written before the case of Nataline Sarkysian.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...

NEVADA, Iowa - John Edwards has been circling Iowa this week making his "closing arguments" to Iowa voters, and sure enough, his town hall events have had the feel of packed courtrooms full of undecided jurors.
"This has happened in American history before," Mr. Edwards said. "Teddy Roosevelt took these people on. He changed America. Franklin Roosevelt. Everybody remembers Franklin Roosevelt changing and transforming the United States of America - he did, I mean, an extraordinary president. Here's what people forget - he was vilified by corporate America. They hated his guts. The reason? Is because he stood up to 'em."
Then Mr. Edwards followed up with an anecdote about Harry Truman that he has said several times a day this week.
"Remember the famous Harry Truman story?" he said. "They said, 'well, Harry, you're giving 'em hell.' And he said, 'No, I'm just telling the truth, and it feels like hell.' Well, it's time for a little truth-telling again."
"What's going to happen on January the third, right here, in Iowa? Is you're going to rise up," he said. "You're going to say, enough is enough. We're going to stand up, we're going to start a rising, and a wave, that sweeps across this country, with the power of change that cannot be stopped. And it's going to start right here in Iowa."