WA: "Amid health care debate, ‘people are dying’" (with video)

The Stand with video:

OLYMPIA — If you didn’t hear about this week’s compelling testimony by Jaydra Cope of Spokane about the dire need for affordable, accessible health care insurance in Washington State, then you missed a brave mother putting a human face on a tragedy too often described by statistics. That face belonged to her brother, Delton, a 23-year-old restaurant worker who died from a congenital heart defect he couldn’t afford to have diagnosed, much less treated.

Watch her testimony (please bear with TVW’s audio difficulties): MORE...

WA State gov't. expands health care insurance, Sarah gets health care

From NY Times, "Defying Slump, 13 States Insure More Children":

The broadening of eligibility has made a profound difference for parents like Vicky and Dewayne McIntyre of Yakima, Wash. When their state lifted the income cutoff for its program to 300 percent of the federal poverty level (or $54,930 for their family of three) from 250 percent (or $45,775), the McIntyres learned that their 8-year-old daughter, Sarah, had become eligible for the first time.

Sarah, who endured lung surgery at 3 and heart surgery at 6 and now has asthma, had been uninsured for a year. “We were into credit card debt and payday loans,” said Ms. McIntyre, 41, who works part time in a store to supplement her husband’s income as a welder. “Her medicine at one point was $880 a month, and we had to pay cash, so we were struggling. It is such a relief now that I can just take her to the doctor if I need to and get her medicine.”