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$1,800 a month rent on his little house in West Los Angeles, $60 per week for gas, and money for food, utilities, and support for his girls, there's almost nothing left. In addition, as a contractor, the income is not steady. Some months are good, some months are bad. To make ends meet, Asbury has slashed his expenses to the bone. He almost never eats out. He takes Progresso microwaveable soup cups to work every day for lunch. He drives the 40-mile one-way commute to Boe- ing in his 1982 Chevy pickup truck, which already has more than 206,000 miles on it. Except for oil changes, he does all his own car repairs and maintenance. He hasn't bought new clothes in four years. The clothes he does buy he purchases at Costco. He hasn't seen a movie in a theater in eight months. Long term, he has no retirement savings and still has some debt left over from his divorce. He says he's generally happy and tries to stay optimistic, because "life's what you make of it and if you run around grumbling and complaining and carrying on, you don't go anywhere." But the pressure on his budget does take a toll. "My biggest stress in life is financial stress from my medical [situation]," said Asbury. "It just inhibits everything I do, simply because of the lack of funds." A lan steinberg, asbury's doc- tor, says it's wrong for patients to choose between paying for the necessities of life and paying for medical care. "There are patients that have diabetes and hypertension and cannot afford their medications," says Steinberg, who prac- tices as part of Medical Access Group in Mari- na del Rey. "It really comes down to: Do they take their medicines or pay the rent this month? Do they eat? So they halve their dia- betes pills to make their pills go a lot farther. A year after, you find their sugar's out of control. The next year, they go blind." Steinberg says the current numbers of uninsured and the lack of a single-payer system that offers basic and cata- strophic healthcare for all Americans is unacceptable. "It really is a crime in my mind for citizens of such a wealthy coun- try to be put at such tremen- dous risk," says Steinberg. "A lot of them are working and sort of in between. What happens to them if they have an emer- gency? If they had insurance, they could be treated, no big deal. But because they don't, they get substandard, untimely care. Maybe too late, too little. I have patients who come in and pay me cash. One day they'll come in and say, 'I don't feel right doctor.' I find out, Oh my gosh, they have breast cancer. They were afraid to tell me. By then, it's metastatic, and will take them another four months to get an operation at [the county hospital]." When asked how he felt about Asbury skipping his prostate test, Steinberg replied bluntly, "He puts himself at risk. We're ideal- ly doing the PSA every year. We follow it and catch any prostate cancers before they get out of control and become metastatic. If you catch it early, you can treat it. What happens if he waits another year or two? Now it's too late because he waited. He suffers." Like Steinberg, Asbury doesn't under- stand why the United States provides no national healthcare for its residents while almost every other industrialized country does. He attributes our backward ways to corruption of our political system by phar- maceutical companies and other special interests that profit off the status quo. The one small bright spot on the health- care landscape is that Asbury will qualify for Medicare once his birthday rolls around on Sept. 3. But as someone who supports a sin- gle-payer healthcare system for the country, getting Medicare kind of feels like getting a birthday present 65 years too late. "I'm distrustful, frankly," said Asbury. "It's better than what I have, but the thing I would like to see finally happen is a national medical plan." No doubt that's what Asbury will be wish- ing for when he blows out the candles this year. ■ Lucia Hwang is editor of California Nurse. They learned, up close and personal, the political context that undermines their patients' health each day of their working lives. Daily, they observe their patients diag- nosed with diseases who cannot afford the medications necessary to treat their illness. Daily, they see their patients having to choose between paying their electric bill or their enormous co -pays for their health insurance. The lack of humanity shown in our healthcare system should make us all ashamed. Yet, the drug companies and the HMOs who make billions of dollars from these abuses control the political system along with their corporate cohorts in other industries. But that 's not a news flash. What is a news flash is that nurses have decided to fight to end these abuses and directly con- front the political system which fosters this inhumanity. The California Nurses Association has filed the Clean Money and Fair Elections Act to appear on the November 2006 ballot. This is the nurses' systemic answer to cleaning up Sacramento. If we don't claim ownership of our elec- toral system, the corporations will continue to poison our politics and poison our democ- racy. And it will continue to be virtually impossible to achieve the reforms we so des- perately need – an overhaul of our inhumane healthcare system, a living wage for every- one, secure funding for our schools, ensuring everyone can retire with dignity. The nurses want to clean up politics in November of 2006 because we have to clean up the healthcare system at the ballot box in 2008. If we are going to succeed, we need to limit the HMOs' and drug companies' con- trol over the government and initiative process. Fashioning our common destinies demands that we must work hand in hand, side by side and keep our vision and our hopes at the forefront of our daily lives. We must take the corrupting influence of money out of politics. We must create a humane healthcare system. And most importantly, we must leave the world a better place for our children and grandchildren and for genera- tions yet to be born. ■ Ro s e An n D e Mo ro i s e xe c u t i v e d i re c t o r o f t h e Ca l i f o r n i a Nu r s e s As s o c i a t i o n a n d Na t i o n a l Nurses Organizing Committee. A P R I L 2 0 0 6 W W W . C A L N U R S E S . O R G C A L I F O R N I A N U R S E 11 FIGHTIN' WORDS (continued from page 7)