Reid urges audience at rally to support health reform plan

Democrats are looking beyond their political leaders and to everyday citizens to regain lost momentum for health care reform.

On Monday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, about 500 people heard moving stories of people who lost their savings and their loved ones after failing to find affordable health care.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., headlined the event but speakers such as former oncology nurse Marla Turner and journalist-turned-advocate Veronica De La Cruz stole the show.

Turner and De La Cruz were among those who shared personal stories of loss they blamed on a health insurance system they claim only works for the healthy and wealthy.

“In the end, if you don’t have your health you have nothing,” said De La Cruz. Her brother Eric died July 4 after failing to receive a heart transplant despite getting Medicare and raising donations to pay for the $1 million procedure.

Her brother was 22 years old when he was diagnosed with a condition that weakens the heart muscle. After five years of fighting to get coverage, it took intervention from Reid and others to help get Eric in line for a transplant.

By the time he qualified for coverage and found a California hospital willing and able to do the procedure, it was too late.

“Eric died because he couldn’t get insurance coverage,” she said, calling on the audience to support reforms that would include having the government step in to provide more coverage or requiring private companies to do so. “We are on the brink of creating a system where basic health care is a right.”

Turner also shared a story of loss. The former oncology nurse said she had always maintained private insurance coverage and saved money for her family. She thought she knew how the medical system worked.

But she says she was diagnosed with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a liver condition that affects 2 to 5 percent of Americans, and can’t get coverage for a transplant.

Treatment has already drained her family’s savings as well as her kids’ college funds, she told the audience.

“My survival is dependent on an organ transplant that I can’t afford to have,” she said.

Reid urged the audience to support a health reform plan currently in Congress that includes a so-called public option, among other controversial features.

He urged people in the audience to write letters to the newspapers and call the radio stations that he says perpetuate myths about health reform being a costly intrusion by government bureaucrats. He also criticized opponents of reform by saying opposition was being orchestrated by health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists.

“They do it behind the scenes, they are pretty good,” Reid said. “These are just myths they are talking about.”

The rally was organized by the state Democratic party and people attending were pre-screened, meaning there was little to no dissenting opinion in the room.

Earlier in the day, Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said he would support reforms to the health care system, but not those proposed so far by the Democrats in Congress.

“If what the President is saying is accurate, I would agree with him,” said Heller of Barack Obama’s claim that people will have the choice of sticking with their current health plans. “But that is not what this legislation says. An individual does not have a choice.”

Specifically, he cited versions of the bill he said would shift people to a government-run plan if their circumstances dictated a need for change in coverage.

“It is not their choice,” Heller said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 477-3861. �