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Smiths:3 7/9/07 1:20 PM Page 12 Postcard from WHAT A LONG, S Editor's note: Donna and Larry Smith's story features in Michael Moore's new film, SiCKO, but she says the really sick thing about their situation is that it's no different than thousands of middle-class Americans are experiencing. "We're not so unique," says Donna. "This pattern is being played out all over the United States." Donna, a longtime newspaper editor, and Larry, a machinist, declared bankruptcy in February 2004 because they could no longer handle the crushing medical debt they accumulated over 14 years of Larry's heart operations and Donna's cancer treatments. "The bills grew kind of insidious and quiet. We'd climb out of a loss of income every time Larry had a major surgery. You start putting groceries on Visa cards, borrowing money from friends, family," explained Donna. Even after the bankruptcy, they continued to get hit with medical bills. In November 2006, they could no longer afford to hold onto their house, sold it, and moved to Denver to live in their daughter's storage room. Donna had to give up her job, which she loved. In May, the Smiths were able to move into their own apartment, but medical costs still dog them. Today they still pay about $593 per month for healthcare premiums and have thousands in medical debt that they "pick away at in little bits" when they can. 12 REGISTERED NURSE CHARLES IDELSON W hen the limo pulled up in front of the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan on Monday evening for the premier of SiCKO, our driver needed to radio dispatch that we were about to arrive. In the moments it took to absorb that thought, we glanced at each other in disbelief. We are not rock stars or powerful entertainment gurus or even especially unique people. We're just Larry and Donna Smith from Aurora, Colo., parents of six, grandparents of 13, and proud owners of just about nothing. But our lives were about to take a drastic turn with one step out onto the red carpet now rolled across a busy New York sidewalk. Across the street there were a bunch of people in red scrubs yelling and cheering and waving. We were told they were nurses from throughout the country led by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee, and that they support single-payer, universal healthcare for all. They looked and sounded like angels. Through all of our health trauma in the past 20 years, nurses have