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April 30, 2005
Help a Great Friend of Democracy
Andy Stephenson is one of the heroes who fought against electronic touch-screen voting fraud and voter suppression in the last election cycle, and he desperately needs your help. He was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, being unemployed has no health insurance, he is in dire straits. He can be treated at Johns Hopkins if he can raise $25,000 for the surgery. We owe Andy a huge debt of gratitude for his work on election reform. If you can afford to donate even $5 to his medical fund, that will help. His friends are working hard to track donations. If you are able to donate, please send a note to info@dougzilla.com, with the amount of the donation, and that you heard about Andy at HoustonDemocrats.com.
This post from William Pitt of Democratic Underground includes instructions for donating to Andy's medical fund:
A great friend of the activist community named Andy Stephenson needs our help. Andy has been a tireless fighter for election reform in America for years. He worked closely with the Black Box Voting organization, spent every waking moment traveling and speaking on the issue of electronic touch-screen voting machines, and even ran for Secretary of State in Washington on a platform based on this specific issue.
I remember meeting up with him last August in Seattle for a Rolling Thunder event. The day was dedicated to a variety of group conversations on topics ranging from the Iraq occupation to environmental protection to electronic voting and the upcoming election. Every gathering where Andy came to speak was packed, and he described in eerily prescient detail what eventually happened in Ohio and elsewhere during the November presidential election.
Several weeks ago, Andy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was recently told that he must undergo what is called a Whipple Procedure. This is a very serious surgery that few hospitals in America are skilled enough to perform well, and requires significant time for recovery. Fortunately, some friends managed to get Andy a slot at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, one of the premier hospitals for this type of procedure. He is slated for the procedure in the second week of May.
Unfortunately, the hospital requires a $25,000 down-payment before they assent to doing the Whipple, and requires another $25,000 once the procedure is done. They are expecting the down-payment immediately. Andy Stephenson does not have health insurance; activists like Andy rarely do, because there is little money to be made in trying to do good. In this, Andy is like millions of other Americans who do not have health insurance and thus face financial ruin if they get sick.
What Andy Stephenson is going through right now is a perfect example of why Universal Health Care for all Americans is needed, and needed now. When you get sick, you should be able to get help, period. Our for-profit health care system is a betrayal of the most basic of human requirements: Care for those in need. The quality of health care available should not be based on how much money you have in the bank, or whether you are fortunate enough to work for a company that can itself afford to offer health coverage, or whether you have friends who can help you.
Andy’s friends have to date managed to raise about $7,000 to put towards the fee for his procedure. So much still remains to be done for him, and must be done soon. Andy Stephenson is one of the main reasons why people have become aware of the gross flaws and potential for fraud that exists with the new corporate-owned electronic touch-screen voting machines. Even though he is sick, he is still speaking to whoever will listen, wherever they may be, to continue to press this issue. He is one of the most dedicated people I have ever been privileged to know.
If you can, please give to the fund for Andy. You can do this electronically via PayPal:
After logging in, choose "Send Money" and enter Andy's email address as the recipient:
Andy_Stephenson@comcast.net
If you prefer to donate via check outside the electronic process, please send to:
Andy Stephenson
P O Box 25624
Seattle, WA 98165-1124Thank you so much.
William Rivers Pitt
Editorial Director
Progressive Democrats of America
Posted by Lyn Wall at April 30, 2005 08:42 AM | Permalink
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Comments
I will let Ron know about this when he gets home, and we'll determine how much we can afford to send. My wonderful mamaw passed away in a hospital from pancreatic cancer when I was just a teenager. She was dirt poor and had Medicaid to pay the medical bills. Pancreatic cancer is a horrible disease. My heart goes out to this gentleman.
I agree wholeheartedly with Lyn that we need Universal Healthcare in this country. Access to quality healthcare should not be a privilege for the wealthy few but a right for every citizen in these United States.
Posted by: Kris Graham at April 30, 2005 11:52 AM
This email from Thom Hartmann does a much better job of explaining why Andy deserves our help:
Save Andy - And Save America, Too! by Thom Hartmann
Just as we occasionally see community fundraising efforts surface with donation collection cans in convenience stores for local folks experiencing medical emergencies, today the progressive community is working to save one of its own.
Andy Stephenson is an activist, a vigilant worker on behalf of clean voting in America. He has worked tirelessly to help uncover details of electronic voting fraud in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. He's devoted years of his life to making America a more democratic nation.
And now his friends are passing the hat to help pay for surgery to save him from pancreatic cancer. The surgery will cost around $50,000, but the hospital wants $25,000 up-front before they'll begin. People can send contributions to Andy Stephenson, P O Box 25624, Seattle, WA 98165-1124, or can visit Paypal and contribute to email address Andy_Stephenson@comcast.net .
We are the only developed democracy in the world where such a spectacle could take place.
Dickens wrote about such horrors in Victorian England - Bob Cratchit's son, Tiny Tim, in need of medical care that was unavailable without a wealthy patron like Ebenezer Scrooge - but the UK has since awakened and become civilized.
Even the tyrants of Communist China provide health care to their people, a bitter irony for the unemployed American factory workers they've displaced, and the Wal-Mart workers who sell their goods.
Andy Stephenson's story is something that could only happen in an oligarchic banana republic - or in the USA.
We live in a nation that can afford for Bill Frist's family to make billions of dollars by taking formerly public hospitals and health-care facilities and privatizing them, adding to an explosion in the cost of health care, but claims it can't afford national health insurance.
We have the most expensive health-care system in the world, but are 27th in the world in the quality of our health.
We've produced health-care billionaires and millionaires in America, but have 45 million uninsured.
And even health insurance in America is not much damn good - about a quarter of all bankruptcies last year in this nation were among insured people who were wiped out by co-pays, deductibles, and "non-covered" hospital and health care expenses. (Of course, thanks to the efforts of the good Dr. Frist, along with 100 percent of Congress's Republicans, George Bush Junior, and a toxic handful of Democrats, such bankruptcies will be infinitely more difficult in the future.)
Ever since Democratic President Harry Truman proposed a national, single-payer health insurance system, Republicans and "conservative" Democrats have fought it. Nonetheless, LBJ did manage to slip a single-payer system through Congress, in the form of Medicare.
And Medicare terrifies the corporate cons, because it has the potential - with a single stroke of legislation - to overnight become a program that covers every American, a national single-payer heath insurance system.
This is one reason why Republicans inserted a poisoned drug benefit into it - mandating that Medicare cannot negotiate wholesale prices with drug companies but must always pay full retail. Thus Medicare's "crisis" - the next domestic terror attack by the cons - isn't forty years down the road, but will come in the next year or two.
Medicare is today tottering on the edge of running in the red, and the drug benefit will push it over that edge. Cons in the right-wing think tanks and in Congress are hoping the upcoming Medicare financial "crisis" will provide a good excuse to then privatize it and kill it off.
Yet Medicare is spectacularly successful. While private for-profit insurance companies (and HMOs, PPOs, etc.) keep anywhere from $15 to $35 of every $100 that passes through their fingers to pay for stockholder dividends, profits, multimillionaire CEO salaries, private jets, marketing, fancy headquarters, and an army of phone banks to deny claims, Medicare keeps only $2 to $3 of every $100.
There are some things that government does do better than private for-profit industry, and providing affordable health care is one of them (as you can see with a visit to Japan, Germany, or any other advanced nation whose system isn't under assault from corporate cons).
While George Bush Junior (who hates to be called "junior") whines about a Social Security system that won't face a crisis for another forty years, Andy Stephenson is facing a crisis today. As are tens of millions of other Americans.
We can help Andy to survive and return to his work by sending him a donation today. And we must help America awaken and become the sane and civilized nation we have always thought ourselves to be by expanding Medicare to cover all Americans.
Thom Hartmann's website is www.thomhartmann.com.
Posted by: Lyn Wall at May 1, 2005 11:12 AM
We are almost to the first goal... currently $24,454. But remember, that is the downpayment. They are still negotiating what the total fee will be. So, please continue giving and promoting this fundraiser after the $25K mark. Andy will also have a long recovery period and additional expenses too. He's worked hard for us. Now we need to support him.
Posted by: Lisa at May 2, 2005 11:45 AM
To update:
At 1:58am this morning, they posted that they were only $118, short of the ENTIRE $50,000 needed to cover the $25,000 downpayment and the $25,000 followup
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3622191&mesg_id=3622191
Just two minutes later at 2:00am they reached the FULL $50,000 goal!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3622191&mesg_id=3622191
Way to go DU!!
Posted by: Mary Porter at May 9, 2005 12:41 PM
Excellent news! Thanks for the update Mary! Democratic Underground has some great articles and forums, especially the Texas forum.
Posted by: Lyn Wall at May 9, 2005 02:12 PM
Andy lost his battle with pancreatic cancer last night. May he rest in peace.
Posted by: Clarity at July 8, 2005 05:26 PM