I live in a conservative county in New Jersey, and at a Wal-Mart down the road from me, one will see a tea party protest from time to time. Although their main target is the substandard and pro-corporate Obamacare, its safe to say that any mention of a true single payer system would send these people into a tizzy of bloviating about "Kanadian Kommie Kare" and wait times, etc.

Is any healthcare system perfect? The answer is no; anything as large as the NHS or Health Canada is bound to unfortunately screw up from time to time. I had an aunt die from cancer due to wrongful reading of an X-ray as well as accusations of gold-bricking by the hospital that she worked at. However, the preponderance of evidence states that countries which have universal healthcare have greatly benefitted. (You can read about a Canadian's perspective on their healthcare system here and here). Whenever I see these people express their bootstrap fetishism and "Don't Tread on Me" tropes, it hearkens back to "Segregation Today, Segregation Tommorrow, Segregation Forever".

Healthcare equality is a civil rights issue, both for class and ability, and they are trying to erase this struggle in the most insidious way possible; case in point, Sarah Palin who tries to scare PWDs and their allies with the death panel lies, as well as carrying her Down Syndrome child (another name for Down Syndrome, Tri(somy) G) around, as Andrea Fay Friedman puts it, like a loaf of bread, and trying to use her child for political gain and to erase a civil rights struggle for people with all types of disabilities by creating imaginary death panels while supporting the real death panels, which is the health insurance industry.

All Americans will benefit from something such as HR 676. However, universal healthcare would most benefit those with disabilities such as myself (mental/neurological). Medicaid, which is the public healthcare system for the poor and disabled, has a reputation for being substandard. I have to travel to Newark to fix my dental issues due to a 5-year wait time at Jersey Shore Medical Center, and a private dentist declined my Medicaid due to me also having third party insurance (even though it was allowed). Not to mention the steep learning curve of healthcare bureaucracy (which in and of itself is ableist for those with learning differences), the payback provision (what country with SPHC seizes ones assets upon death to pay back the government), and the exclusion of the working poor (this does not encourage people with disabilities to go back to work. We've learned to have a "free appropriate public education" for those with disabilities, how about "free appropriate public healthcare" for all.

But as a transgender person who is low-income and disabled, services are hard to come by.
Its safe to say that those who are transgender and want services and are poor are, in many cases out of luck, even though

I. Key Statutory Provision: States participating in the Medicaid program must provide "necessary medical services" to qualified state residents. 42 U.S.C. § 1396 II. Supporting Regulation: In furtherance of a Medicaid Agency's obligation to provide necessary medical services, Section 440.230(c) of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations provides that a Medicaid Agency may not arbitrarily deny or reduce the amount, duration, or scope of a required service to an otherwise eligible recipient solely because of the recipient's diagnosis, type of illness, or condition.

There is no question that Transgender suicide rates are real. Even without these numbers we know the reality as the spectre of suicide picks us of one by one. Transgender people are no strangers to death. Instead of following the WPATH Standards of Care many die from thrombosis from unsupervised illegal hormone use. Some die from injections at "Silicone pumping parties". All this is done to become their "True Selves"

Some would argue that what is behind the proposed cuts is the governor's opposition to abortion access. Indeed, those who oppose abortion have applauded these cuts because they mistakenly assume they end state funding for abortion. But abortion services would not be affected. What would be affected, however, are routine gynecological exams, contraception, blood pressure, anemia and diabetes screening, breast and cervical cancer screening and education, STD and HIV counseling, screening and treatment, pregnancy testing, prenatal care and more.

About a third of these women have incomes of less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level -- that is, for a family of four, an income of about $56,000 per year. Anyone reading this who is part of such a family knows how many demands there are on that money. Nine percent of these women are actually below the poverty line (about $22,500 for a family of four), and 7 percent are on Medicaid. Twenty percent have no insurance at all.

KS: Well let's see, this is Kathie, I'm going to leap into this because, actually, in my case I'm beginning to realize the ways that national health care would be of great benefit for me personally, including for me as a woman and a feminist woman who has been trying all my life to have the kind of independence and work interests that men can have, is what began to open me up to learning the things I needed to learn to get behind national health insurance for myself. You talk about the WBAI audience already being for national health insurance or universal health care, well I actually fell into this category of people, this was back in the 1980s. I thought, well, I was for it morally. Sure I believed in universal health care. But I didn't really. I wasn't sure, I think I was like a lot of mid-level income people who say they are for public education, and are for public education, but they aren't sure they want their kids to go there. I wasn't sure that national health care meant good health care and I wasn't sure I wanted it for myself. And it was really in the mid 80s, when I began to reach the age at which I really had to decide to have a child. Plus the costs of health insurance were skyrocketing, and I worked as a freelance film editor, so the work had an irregular nature to it. Not to mention the experience of male unreliability, whether you were married or unmarried, in terms of being there with childcare, helping with housework. It seemed like a huge plunge to take, a big risk to take, to go ahead and have a child. And I thought of all these things that stood in the way and with the cost of health insurance somehow looming in a new way. Oh, by the way, another thing too, I had been very familiar with a lot of the data. It turns out in retrospect that I had been reading the data about how the United States has a lower life expectancy than 17 other countries. Actually, I realized I had been reading that data for a long time. But as long as I thought that and got all this other stuff from the media, much more from the media than an occasional article with data like that, I couldn't absorb it. It was only at this kind of crisis period in my life, when I had to decide whether to have a child-and go ahead and take that huge risk-that I began to (and the costs again, as I mentioned, were rising) I began to suddenly notice that data about how United States health care isn't really any good. And not only that, but it has gotten more expensive than every other country. And, it was at that point that I realized this myth about the United States, that is was a myth. And that we had to have national health insurance, and that it would be one thing to help with the childcare. It was one thing, I thought it was something we could win. And it definitely had a childcare component. It would have, perhaps, put me over the edge in deciding [to have a child]. I felt that it would, actually, that it was sort of a last straw-if only we had that. When I realized that we didn't even have national health insurance and that I was totally at the mercy of irregular jobs, unreliable men-I guess I kind of decided that I would basically have to not have a kid, and I almost saw it as a sense of being on strike, on strike for better conditions. If we had had better conditions, I would have had a child because I wanted one. I wanted one but not at the terrible cost. So that is sort of how I came to it, I saw it as a childcare issue.

Well my husband is in the military so we have a form of national health insurance, don't we? Anyway, a friend of mine in Sweden has also had a baby; she had her baby in December. She gets, and her husband both, both parents, get a year of paid parental leave to be with their new baby. I, on the other hand, had to turn down an offer of work because they were not going to give me maternity leave, and my husband got no parental leave offered through the Army. So I think that's a very good example. Here I sit, a radical Redstockings feminist, a stay at home mom-not really by choice, I'm job hunting right now-in part because of the lack of these types of social programs whereas my friend is enjoying her maternity leave, knowing when she goes back, there will be a job there for her. And also knowing that her husband can take time off as well and share in raising their child.