I work with groups of disabled and handicapped people and their families throughout Northern California.

My heart breaks when they say they can’t afford their prescriptions or they can’t get insurance because they have a pre-existing condition.

We agree that when they have to go to emergency for care as they have no doctor, it costs the government more for medical help

than if they had a doctor to consult.

We are in desperate need of health care reform that recognizes that those in the middle class and lower are human beings with a need for medical care as much as those in the upper income levels.

When I talk to people like postal workers, checkers, hospital workers, store clerks, and many others, especially those only able to get part-time employment, who can’t afford health coverage, I wonder why our country can’t find a way to get them covered.

We would be amazed if everyone without health care in our community wore some identifier even one day.

Why are we doing this to them? Why is their life less valuable? Why can other countries provide this and we can’t?

Let’s all call, write, fax or e-mail our Senators and Congress members to urge them to quit playing politics with our lives and get the Health Care Bill passed and signed.

Health care costs are going up for all of us. If they don’t move on it, health care costs could bankrupt our nation with devastating consequences.

Beverly Anderson, Colfax