Thursday, March 18, 2010

Mr. President Obama - US Health Care vs. Mauritius Health Care

Mr. President Barack Obama,
The White House,
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20500.
USA.

Re: Ill effects of poor health care and abusive insurance companies.

Dear Mr. President,

Today, I heard your poignant speech on our local TV channel about your mother spending the last six months of her life lying in a hospital bed dying of cancer. Your mother was forced to spend much precious time left, talking on the phone with her health insurance provider. Your mother was thus unable to concentrate on getting better or sharing valuable moments with the family.

Every day how many such moving stories go unheard in America? You, Mr. President are our voice!

Today, I am forced to live on the island of Rodrigues off the coast of the Republic of Mauritius. I have been torn away from the US, from my four children and sixteen grand children all living in the US. I would so love to be able to focus on them and share unique aspects of their American life. But, here I am suffering from poor health in ‘health driven exile’! My poor health and loneliness is exacerbated by the ill effects of no health care in a country supposedly as great and as rich as America.

Had I not listened to you speaking so convincingly with the powerful voice of your heart, talking about your mother, my story might have remained unheard. How many more other pathetic health stories are buried under the layers of a whole range of subdued emotions?

In February 2002, my wife died of ALS at home in America. Harborview Hospital and the University of Washington Medical Center had declared that there was nothing more they could do for my wife and sent her home to die! For a month and a half, I became her health care provider with the help of my children and Hospice. Thank God for Hospice!

I have been so scarred by my experiences of no affordable or free health care in America that ever since you became President, I have been routing for you. I have been cheering you on and praying for you to keep finding the constant necessary courage to fight a contaminated and contagious system that is getting progressively sicker to the core. Yet a system that has been so rotten for so long that no other than you has dared to take a scalpel to carve out this cancer and stop it from spreading into the very marrow of North American society.

Today, as I listened to you, I applauded you so loud that I hoped you could hear me all the way across the three oceans that separate us! (I am writing to you just in case you missed my applause!) I applauded loudest when I heard you say that neither you nor should any American tolerate a status quo that comtinuously benefits insurance companies to the detriment of the American public! Yyyyyyeeeeessssssss!

Today whenever my children and grand children ask me: “Dad, or Bopa, when do you feel that you will be able to come back to America to be by our side, to be where you lived for 27 years, to be where you educated us, to be able to watch your grand children/us grow, to be able to meet some of the grand children you have not even had the chance to know yet?” Unfortunately my ever more desperate and poignant sad stock answer has to be: “I will be back when President Obama gets health care approved!”

So although I am so, so very far away, rest assured that I am watching your fight blow by blow. Indeed I am probably a lot closer to you and your ultimate goal than many in America. I know first hand that your victory means so, so very much not just to you, not just to me but to all Americans. Therefore I also applaud all those courageous politicians who have gone on a limping limb to be relentlessly behind your fair and just vision of a truly great and rich America.

Today I am grateful that Mauritius, my native country, a country without any natural resources, has free health care and free primary, secondary and tertiary education for members of its population. If a country such as Mauritius can do it for the benefit of all rather than protect the privileged benefits of a few, why could America not do it too? Change – Yes you can – Yes you should – Yes you must change the American health care system so we can all return to a sane environment. By the way Mauritius is the only country that I know of that subsidizes religions. In effect the Mauritian Government pays for people of various color and creed to pray!!! Is it why it has been so blessed with such an enlightened and most able Prime Minister – Dr. Navinchandra Ramgoolam – The son of the father of our nation!

Today I am alive and living in Mauritius because I have had free health care and free medication in Mauritius. Ever since I had cancer surgery in March 2006 followed by heart problems I have received free health care and medication on a regular basis although I had been away living for 27 years in America just prior to my cancer surgery!!! At what real human cost can America claim that it cannot afford to care for the health of its population or its immigrants? Is this a cost that cannot be measured in Dollars? Your mother, you and I must have experienced that hard cost first hand to really know that there is unspeakable pain and suffering beyond the boundaries of a greedy insurance system solely focused on the ‘well being’ of a comparatively privileged few unhealthy tsars!

But my sad story does not end there. The rest of my story has to do with another aspect of abusive insurance companies in America.

Today I am alive but forced to live here far from those I love most because I am broke after living the nightmare side of the all American dream gone wrong. I was defrauded of millions of dollars by a title insurance company. To crown it all that particular title insurance company usurps your image by calling itself: ‘The First American Title Insurance Company’!

In August 2006 I published a book, ‘First American Title to Injustice’. My book is my and my family’s true life story. It highlights the corrupt and criminal aspect of ‘Title gods’ such as The First American Corporation.

On November 13, 2006, the capitalist world was most surprised to see that even Forbes unreservedly exposed the $18 billion fraud perpetrated upon the American public by title insurance companies! The title of the Forbes article was: "America's Richest Insurance Racket"

On November 1, 2007, Reuters reported “New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Thursday sued First American Corp (FAF.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and one of its units for allegedly colluding with Washington Mutual Inc (WM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to inflate the appraisal values of homes, helping trigger the mortgage market meltdown.”
By using preferred appraisers, "First American helped set the current mortgage crisis in motion," Cuomo said in a statement.
But for that First American nothing has changed. It is business as usual!!!
There also, unfortunately, I know first hand why Forbes and Mr. Cuomo felt so incensed by the abusive practices that have marred the American real estate landscape. There also, much change is needed to stop the unnecessary fleecing of Americans for the benefit of a most undeserving few! Will you ever have the courage to purge America of the evil practices of title companies?
I pray that you do! Change! Yes, you can! Yes, you must! Yes you will. Many will then join in the loud sustained applause you should hear resounding in your ears for years to come from around the globe.
Keep up the good work! As if you needed some extra motivation, I am sending you by mail a copy of my book!
Yours truly,

Louis Leclezio.
P.S. Your staff can get further input from my blog: http://www.lleclezio.blogspot.com/

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Catholics, Health Care and the Senate's bad bill

The following column was published in the March 17, 2010 issue of the Denver Catholic Register.

The Senate version of health-care reform currently being forced ahead by congressional leaders and the White House is a bad bill that will result in bad law. It does not deserve, nor does it have, the support of the Catholic bishops of our country. Nor does the American public want it. As I write this column on March 14, the Senate bill remains gravely flawed. It does not meet minimum moral standards in at least three important areas: the exclusion of abortion funding and services; adequate conscience protections for health-care professionals and institutions; and the inclusion of immigrants.

Groups, trade associations and publications describing themselves as “Catholic” or “prolife” that endorse the Senate version – whatever their intentions – are doing a serious disservice to the nation and to the Church, undermining the witness of the Catholic community; and ensuring the failure of genuine, ethical health-care reform. By their public actions, they create confusion at exactly the moment Catholics need to think clearly about the remaining issues in the health-care debate. They also provide the illusion of moral cover for an unethical piece of legislation.

As we enter a critical week in the national health-care debate, Catholics across northern Colorado need to remember a few simple facts.

First, the Catholic bishops of the United States have pressed for real national health-care reform in this country for more than half a century. They began long before either political party or the public media found it convenient. That commitment hasn’t changed. Nor will it.

Second, the bishops have tried earnestly for more than seven months to work with elected officials to craft reform that would serve all Americans in a manner respecting minimum moral standards. The failure of their effort has one source. It comes entirely from the stubbornness and evasions of certain key congressional leaders, and the unwillingness of the White House to honor promises made by the president last September.

Third, the health-care reform debate has never been merely a matter of party politics. Nor is it now. Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak and a number of his Democratic colleagues have shown extraordinary character in pushing for good health-care reform while resisting attempts to poison it with abortion-related entitlements and other bad ideas that have nothing to do with real “health care.” Many Republicans share the goal of decent health-care reform, even if their solutions would differ dramatically. To put it another way, few persons seriously oppose making adequate health services available for all Americans. But God, or the devil, is in the details -- and by that measure, the current Senate version of health-care reform is not merely defective, but also a dangerous mistake.

The long, unpleasant and too often dishonest national health-care debate is now in its last days. Its most painful feature has been those “Catholic” groups that by their eagerness for some kind of deal undercut the witness of the Catholic community and help advance a bad bill into a bad law. Their flawed judgment could now have damaging consequences for all of us.

Do not be misled. The Senate version of health-care reform currently being pushed ahead by congressional leaders and the White House -- despite public resistance and numerous moral concerns -- is bad law; and not simply bad, but dangerous. It does not deserve, nor does it have, the support of the Catholic bishops in our country, who speak for the believing Catholic community. In its current content, the Senate version of health-care legislation is not “reform.” Catholics and other persons of good will concerned about the foundations of human dignity should oppose it."
http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/3581

Joseph Drake said...

Dear Louie, I have posted a link to your blog on one of mine.

http://roominhouseblues.blogspot.com/2010/11/health-care-in-america-or-elsewhere.html

Your Friend, Joseph