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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Oregon "Survivors" in DC for Health Care Protest

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Monday, March 8, 2010   

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a last-minute push to urge Congress to vote on health care reform legislation, two Oregon women have joined a group of people from 19 states to share their medical horror stories with insurance lobbyists and Congressional representatives. Calling themselves "health insurance survivors," all of the two dozen protesters either have life-threatening illnesses or family members affected by insurance costs, denials and cancellations.

Mary Wallace, Gold Hill, lives with family after her employer in Minnesota let her go - her medical condition had tripled insurance costs for the small business. She is currently without health insurance coverage and needs a lung transplant for the pulmonary fibrosis that doctors think might be hereditary.

Wallace says she hopes to convince the Oregon congressional delegation that a system of health care for all Americans is worth a second look.

"You could scrap a lot of this and just do Medicare for all, through the reconciliation process, and then let the private insurance companies have the Medicare supplement business and work on regulating that. I really do think that, ultimately, that's the only way we're going to be able to contain costs."

Alaya Wyndham-Price, Portland, lost her job after taking a leave for a brain tumor diagnosis. Even when she was working, she says the cap on her health coverage was $20,000 and her medical bills soon surpassed it. She hopes insurance lobbyists will take the "survivors'" stories to heart, including her own.

"I'm due for another MRI, which I can't afford now, to see if the tumor has grown again. Basically, I have absolutely no insurance - and I need more testing and I need to have surgery, which could cost up to $140,000."

The survivors group has been gathered by Health Care for America Now, an advocacy movement with 25 Oregon member groups including Children First for Oregon, the Oregon Nurses Association and the caregivers' union, SEIU.

Today, the protesters are at a Washington hotel where insurance lobbyists are meeting. On Tuesday, they'll meet with individual lawmakers to urge their cooperation in passing a health care reform bill.




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