Re: "How the G.O.P. Can Fix Health Care" (Op-Ed, 2/22/10)

To the Editor:

James Pinkerton obviously isn't familiar with households like mine – those rural homes several miles off Main Street where the middle class dollars come from jobs in manufacturing, service and agriculture. On my State Road, when Americans think about health care, they think first of finance, not health.

At the age of 32, my mother discovered she had large - yet benign - breast tumors. After the biopsy, my father's 3-man plumbing company could no longer afford to offer insurance coverage to my family. Fortunately my mother was able to insure us through her factory, but we rationed health care in fear that too many visits to the doctor would result in loss of coverage or worse, the loss of her job. We suffered the opposite of hypochondria. Twenty years later, my parents still refuse to see the doctor for stitches and sprains, let alone preventative care such as mammograms and colonoscopies.

My parents put their faith in Republicans. Unfortunately, Republicans are doing nothing to help people like them.

So there's that,

Laura