AMHERST - More than 100 area residents crowded onto the Town Common Wednesday night to hold a vigil in support of those suffering under the current health care system and to demand that a government-funded public option be enacted as quickly as possible.
The vigil, held at the same time as others in more than 300 locations across the country, was organized by local members of MoveOn.org, a political action committee with 5 million members nationwide.
As cars drove by and honked in support, residents held up signs, lit candles and spoke about how the state of American health care has affected their families.
As the sun began to set and people started to light their candles, Pat Fiero, a MoveOn member from Leverett who helped organize the vigil, held a megaphone to a laptop computer, allowing Sen. Edward Kennedy's speeches calling for health care reform to echo across the common.
Kennedy died Aug. 26; the speeches spanned the many years of the Massachusetts senator's crusade for universal health care.
"Almost 40 years ago Ted Kennedy introduced his first bill to provide health care for all Americans, and this year he introduced his last," she said after a long applause. "Let's hope this time it finally gets passed."
The first to speak at the vigil was Richard Knapp, a Belchertown resident who said his three sons have struggled to get the care they need.
His oldest son, who he said has a genetic condition affecting his kidneys that will require a transplant and has resulted in his losing most of his ability to see and hear, has had a difficult time finding a donor because he doesn't have health insurance.
"We all hear about the transplant list and say hooray for the list," Knapp said. "But you cannot get on the list if you are uninsured, period."
#Death panels already'
When his son looked to family members for a possible transplant match, Knapp said, he found his younger brother was willing, but unable to start the testing process because he, too, didn't have health insurance.
"We have death panels already. You and I have paid thousands of dollars out of our insurance money for little people who sit in cubicles and make the decision that thousands of people will not get insurance and they will die," Knapp said. "That is what we have and it is going to get worse if we don't do something right now."
Also sharing the story of her difficulties with health care was Leslie Elliott of Hadley, who said that after she and her husband both lost their jobs at a local supermarket, he began to suffer from chest pains. To be diagnosed, he needed to stay at Cooley Dickinson Hospital overnight.
"He stayed overnight for one night hooked up to tubes and monitors, and it ended up costing us $6,000," she said. "At that point, since we didn't work for the corporation anymore, we had no health insurance and we found ourselves in deep trouble."
To get the care they needed, Elliott said she and her husband began working part-time jobs and received coverage from MassHealth, a state-funded insurance option for middle- and low-income residents.
"That is where we are right now, 13 years later. We are still watching the number of hours we work because if we work any more than the amount MassHealth will give us, we will lose everything," she said. "My teeth are rotting while the CEO of an insurance company is getting $20 million a year for his salary. I don't think that is fair, and I think it's time that it stops."
One speaker said he was raised in Springfield but moved to Montreal for better health care coverage after seeing his father struggle with payments. Roy Wright said he has witnessed firsthand the benefits of government-funded health care in Canada.
"They have a compassion system. You get covered everywhere in Canada with one single card," he said. "In the Canadian system, there is no wing of a hospital devoted to billing, there is just one secretary for every hospital."
Before closing, Wright asked those in attendance to sign petitions and boycott companies that speak out against a public health care option.
"I hope that something can be done for Teddy's memory, for the memory of my father and for all of those people you know who haven't died because of problems with the system, but have suffered so much indignity because of it," he said.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.
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