60, Unemployed, and Without Health Insurance

The Huffington Post gives us the following good reason for health care reform:

Health insurance is mighty important to three-time cancer survivor Mary
Duffy, 60, of Redwood City, California. So when she lost her job in June
2008, she opted to pay the big premiums to keep her coverage under the COBRA
program. But COBRA has a time limit -- 18 months. In December, Duffy's being
kicked loose.

Aside from frantically searching for a job, Duffy has had one
hope. "Honestly I've been crossing my fingers and praying that Obama would
be able to pass health care by December," she said in a phone interview.

In between revising her resume "what feels like 387 times," Duffy
has been watching in frustration as the man she admired so much has had his
signature policy initiative clobbered in Congress. Duffy said she
volunteered for the Obama campaign, knocking on doors and making calls,
specifically because of her inability to obtain an insurance policy, due to
cancer, from 1992 to 1997.

"To hear today about the president backing off the public option --
Jesus, we're getting to see this man for what he really is," Duffy said. "He
seems fully prepared to let men who represent more cows than people steer the
ship." (That would be men like Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus,
Democrat of Montana, who represents a state with 967,440 humans and 2.6 million
heads of cattle.)