Cancer survivor: Don’t listen to insurance industry ads

Cancer survivor: Don’t listen to insurance industry ads

EDITOR:

I am a survivor. I was diagnosed with epitheloid sarcoma in August 2006. It was diagnosed as stage IV cancer. The doctor who discovered it first said that he wanted me to see a urologist/oncologist surgeon that he said would be my best choice to proceed.

I remember him taking my insurance card and leaving my wife and I sitting in his office while he left the room to call the surgeon in another state. I looked at my wife and said, “If he doesn’t accept it, I will die.”

It is then that I knew health-care reform was needed to benefit all Americans. This is not an issue about political parties or ideology; this is about Americans getting health coverage.

So much misinformation is being spread around. The insurance industry is spending $1.4 million a day to try to prevent real reform. They are not doing it to benefit Americans; they are doing it for their investors. They don’t want any competition from a public plan. Health-care benefits rise at least triple the rate of inflation each year. Small business, which employs most Americans, will benefit the most from reform. Within 10 years, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care.

The president and his staff have been working on this plan for a long time, and Congress has seen it for a long time. This is not being shoved down their throats, as some have said. This is not socialized medicine as some say; this is reform that is needed so we can move forward as a nation.

I don’t want anyone to go through what I had to, but if they do, I want them to have the same access that I enjoyed. Thanks to the dedication and God-given skills that all of the health professionals who treated me, I have been cancer-free for three years.

I want my children to live in a country that will let them make this a “more perfect union.” without having to worry about health care. Learn the facts; don’t listen to the ads.

Remember, this is about health care for Americans and not politics.

THOMAS LAMB Youngstown

Use anti-tipping restraints on furniture to avoid tragedies like the one in Struthers

EDITOR:

I read, with sadness, the article in the July 26 issue of The Vindicator, which cited the tragic death of a Struthers girl from a bedroom dresser falling on her.

I applaud the steps being taken by the Mahoning County Health Department and others to prevent further incidents.

Here, at Bolotin Furniture, we recently initiated the SAfer Furniture Everyday (SAFE) campaign to reduce both deaths and injuries from furniture tipping over.

This campaign includes providing furniture anti-tipping restraints free to anybody who comes into the store and asks for them.

Restraints will be provided both for new furniture purchased elsewhere and existing furniture already in the home. If we deliver furniture that needs anti-tipping restraints, we will install them at no charge.

I join The Vindicator in urging all readers, especially those with young children often in the home, to take all safety precautions and prevent a repeat of this tragedy.

MARK BOLOTIN

Bolotin Furniture

Hermitage, Pa.