Reforming Healthcare
WALB News
November 29, 2007
Albany - - We all know there’s trouble with health care. Skyrocketing costs, insurance companies that deny claims, too many people uninsured. An advocacy group that wants to solve those problems is traveling the country to spread their message. An Albany woman opened the doors to her home to help.
Susie Smith takes her passion to heart.
“Nursing is my calling. I love it dearly.”
She’s retired now, but she remembers problems in the healthcare system.
“Working in the hospital for so many years you see so many people come in. People with little or no health insurance stay home until they’re too sick.”
She says it has to stop. So she opened the doors of her home for other healthcare workers, Congressman Sanford Bishop, and the Healthcare Now advocacy group. They watched a Michael Moore movie about America’s healthcare system called ‘Sicko’.
“Were sick of this system, this system is not making sick people healthy,” says Elyse Seigele with Healthcare Now.
She says more than the poor are at risk.
“What this movie does is really show that middle class people are in trouble too and upper middle class people. That no one is safe from the horrors of our healthcare system and the for-profit nature of the insurance companies,” Seigele says.
So they’re asking Congressman Sanford Bishop to co-sponsor House Resolution 676 to guarantee health insurance to everyone and expand Medicare.
“Anytime there’s an issue in the country and people are talking about it that’s always a step in the right direction,” says Kenneth Cutts of Sanford Bishop’s Office.
Smith hopes Congressman Bishop will act when he returns to Washington.
“Now that I can’t do physical nursing, this was my next course,” she says.
Making sure everyone gets the healthcare they need.
Congressman Bishop previously sponsored the bill, but he hasn’t yet signed on to the current version.