Three generations - Nancy, Gloria & Grace

Three generations - Nancy, Gloria & Grace
Originally uploaded by walk4healthcare

Here are three generations of the Josephs’: Nancy, on the left, Gloria in the middle, and Grace.

Nancy (on the left): Nancy is 60, without work and without health insurance. She has recently moved in with her mother. She has two prescriptions which cost her $140 a month and works odd jobs to pay for one of these. She lives ‘one day at a time’ and hopes that there’ll be healthcare reform, “So people like me can get the prescriptions we need.”

Gloria (in the middle): Gloria’s husband died three years ago. She now has $1,600 a month between Social Security and the Ford pension. “It’s a good plan,” with prescriptions at $2 each, she told me.

Her other story, which bothered her deeply, was about her son. He had retired after 22 years of distinguished service in the Navy—the highly stressful submarine service once dueling daily, in secret, with the Soviet Navy. He had a quadruple bypass and also an abdominal aneurysm operation. “All that went well,” she said, “but he had a very tough time getting reimbursed, especially since his operations left him very sick and weak.” He had to fight to reimbursed while lying in bed recovering. “I’ve seen other veteran’s have the same struggles,” Gloria told me. “And it’s a real shame we treat our heroes this way.”

Grace (on the right): The youngest, hasn’t had any healthcare troubles and is hoping to get insurance as a student when she enrolls in college. She does believe that some sort of healthcare reform is necessary.