The 'Health Care Overhaul Bill' Passes in the Senate - Obama's First (amputated) Deliverable?

The Health Care Overhaul Bill was passed in the senate on a party line vote of 60 - 39, and President Obama called it “the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the 1930s ......With today's vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country,.... Our challenge, then, is to finish the job. We can't doom another generation of Americans to soaring costs and eroding coverage and exploding deficits."

The Bill at a glance:

• it will not offer the public option
• it will not offer illegal residents coverage, even if they can pay for it themselves
• it will almost certainly increase by at least 30 million the number of people covered by government and private health insurance.
• it will for the first time require most individuals to buy health insurance
• it also will offer federal subsidies to help pay premiums
• it will impose penalties on employers that do not offer workers affordable policies
• it will set up an insurance exchange where individuals can shop for coverage if they have no job-based coverage
• it will make insurance companies end practices that have made it hard for people to get coverage when they get sick or have a chronic disease by setting caps on total payments, for example, or denying coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition
• it will let young adults stay longer on their parents' health plan
• it will allow families free preventive health care such as well-baby visits and mammograms.
• it will give health care professionals incentives to provide more cost-effective care and face penalties if they do not
• it will give Americans the right to live a healthy life

Extremes

What deeps, the droves of loneliness can dig!

Can make you weep and cry for things inane.
A tearing need
a dire craving
an endless pit
an angry chasm

What chances the angst of age can augur!
Can make the sanest soul savor a life on edge.
A growing fear
a silent scream
a senseless infatuation
a one night stand

What abuse marginalization can procure!
Can make the apathetic cringe for sure.
a soundless whipping
an endless pain
a racial slur
an ire unexplained.

Support "The 'Dream Act" - A Bill Truly 'American' !

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

(Emma Lazarus' poem inscribed on the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands)

Juan came to this country when he was 10 years old. He was heartbroken to leave his grandmother behind in Honduras, his native country; she had been the sole family he had had for the first ten years of his life. His father left Honduras before Juan came into the world, and his mother left shortly after, seeking a new life in the USA. Some ten years later, Juan is told that his parents have sent for him, and he boards a plane to come to the USA to join his parents who are now illegal immigrants as their visitor VISA had expired within a few months of their arrival.

Juan joins two strangers, his parents, in a strange land and starts in a strange American Public School setting where his native language, Spanish, is of no help. He is enrolled in an ESL program, and that is the beginning of his academic career. The 11 year old gradually gets acclimatized to his new parents in the new setting, and is gladdened by the arrival of his baby brother who till date is the only one Juan considers as his real family. Within months of his arrival, Juan too becomes an illegal alien, a status he is completely oblivious of until he is in his junior year at high school and is thinking of college as his next step toward living the American dream. What is more is that Juan is now a star soccer player who has been the MVP in the county for two consecutive years scoring the highest number of goals. At the All Star Game, the recruiters all make a beeline for Juan only to lose interest when the coach tells them of Juan's undeclared legal status. In the meanwhile, Juan is slowly awakening to to the reality of his situation; he sees his team mates, who played soccer only so that they could put that on their resume, being accepted to colleges on full and partial scholarships. His high school coach tries to find Juan a spot in a community college only to find that the college cannot give Juan any money because he is undocumented. Juan's parents in the meanwhile, decide to separate, and decide that Juan will go with the father and Jose the younger would stay with the mother. Juan cannot bear the thought of separating from Jose, the one human being he feels connected with! He protests but to no avail. His father, who is a part owner in a construction business, has to relocate because of the non availability of jobs in the current recession. As a result of the financial crunch, he will also not be able to help pay for Juan's college. Juan is devastated; his dream of going to college and being able to play soccer at a college level is shattered!

Juan has since done odd jobs accompanying his father to construction sites every now and again. He plays soccer whenever he can on adult leagues that call him when they are short on players for practices. That may perhaps be only reason why Juan hasn't sunk into depression despite the hopeless situation he finds himself in.

Why should this trusting 19 year old have to pay a price this big for something he really is not responsible for? Why should Juan have to suffer for the decisions made by his parents? Why does he have to suffer the illegal alien status when the USA is the only place he recognizes as home, a home he has never been outside of since he first arrived here?

The 'Dream Act' can bring hope into Juan's life and into the lives of thousands of other Juans who live their life in fear, in a kind of limbo that they cannot find a way out of. Life is passing by for the Juans of this country, and we can change that if we support the Dream Act that will give the children of illegal immigrants their life and the opportunity to live out their American Dream!