OBSERVATIONS FROM INSIDE FLORIDA HOSPITAL

I am writing from Mary Beth's room in Florida Hospital in Orlando using my sister Laura's laptop. The kidney operations went very well yesterday and both patients are doing very well today.

Mary Beth is up and walking around a bit and just ate a regular meal. I would say she will be out of here in 24-36 hours and then we will go to her brother's house in Sarasota, Florida along the Gulf of Mexico. We have to hang around Florida for 9 more days as the doctors want her close so they can check her out before we return home on Dec 9. Obviously she is still very sore and has a way to go.

My sister Laura, now in the Intensive care ward, is doing very well with her new healthy kidney. Doctors are already saying she is ahead of schedule and she is showing signs of her old happy and playful self. Many of her friends were in the waiting room during her surgery and on Saturday they are playing a party of sorts for her in her hospital room.

The hospital is totally on wifi so have been able to keep up with email while here.

Last night MB and I watched the Republican debate from Florida. This evening we've been watching news coverage of that debate. The most memorable moment in the debate for me was when Rudy Giuliani said that he'd deal with America's massive debt by doing across the board cuts in all government agencies. He also said he'd enact a hiring freeze and not replace retiring workers. "One worker could then do the job of two or three people, just like the corporate world is doing," he said. That one got my attention. Wage slavery I think they call it.

The experience here of seeing MB get incredible care reinforces my belief in the need for national health care for all - single payer health care. MB has a very bad and expensive health care plan in Maine. Luckily Laura's health coverage is paying for the entire kidney transplant. But it makes me think of all the poor and working people out there with no medical coverage. (People like me for example. I've had to drop my health insurance because it has gone up 20% each year for the past 4 years and why pay so much for a $15,000 deductible? It was basically worthless to me.)

We now have 48 million people in the country without any health care today. That is totally unacceptable. Sadly, no one outside of Dennis Kucinich in the presidential horse race is talking about true national health care.

The public must come alive and rattle their chains while they still can. The sheep must come alive.