Two women from Salisbury

When the City of Salisbury comes to mind, lots of people think of our Senior Senator, who claims to be from that quaint little town, just as she claims to be from North Carolina. Milking our state for all it's worth, Elizabeth Dole has parlayed the illusion of residency for a career of personal gain and power. One of the ultimate insiders in the DC establishment, Dole seems to care little about her hometown, and even less about her home state.

But today readers all around the world are getting another view of Salisbury, through the eyes of a different woman, courtesy of the New York Times.

SALISBURY, N.C. — Vicki H. Readling vividly remembers the start of 2006.“Everybody was saying, ‘Happy new year,’ ” Ms. Readling recalled. “But I remember going straight to bed and lying down scared to death because I knew that at that very minute, after midnight, I was without insurance. I was kissing away a bad year of cancer. But I was getting ready to open up to a door of hell.” Ms. Readling, a 50-year-old real estate agent, is one of nearly 47 million people in America with no health insurance.

Increasingly, the problem affects middle-class people like Ms. Readling, who said she made about $60,000 last year. As an independent contractor, like many real estate agents, Ms. Readling does not receive health benefits from an employer. She tried to buy a policy in the individual insurance market, but — having had cancer — could not obtain coverage, except at a price exceeding $27,000 a year, which was more than she could pay.

“I don’t know which was worse, being told that I had cancer or finding that I could not get insurance,” Ms. Readling (pronounced RED-ling) said in an interview in her office, near the tree-lined streets and stately old homes of this city in the Piedmont region of North Carolina.

It is well known that the ranks of the uninsured have been swelling; federal figures show an increase of 6.8 million since 2000.

The impending collapse of the middle-class under the rich-get-richer policies of Elizabeth Dole and her compatriots in the Party of Greed is accelerating day by day. After sitting on their asses for six years in power - doing ZERO to further the common good in our country and the world - the jig may be finally up. Because when people like Vicki Readling are telling their stories on the front page of the New York Times, even hapless hacks like Liddy Dole have to sit up and take notice.

According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll . . . the problems of the uninsured have jumped to the top of the domestic political agenda in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Today, more than one-third of the uninsured — 17 million of the nearly 47 million — have family incomes of $40,000 or more, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonpartisan organization. More than two-thirds of the uninsured are in households with at least one full-time worker.

Ms. Readling’s experience is typical; people who have had serious illnesses often have difficulty obtaining insurance. If coverage is available, the premiums are often more than they can afford.

Politicians who think they can shuck and jive their way around this issue through another election cycle are delusional. Universal health care is coming . . . and if you're not for it, that means you're against it. Right Senator Dole? And that means you're against people like Vicki Readling.