are always welcome :)

Please..feel free to share personal reasons you are supporting Hillary or Barack.

I think we need the positivity!

Awesome. My mom's the same way, she's supporting Senator Clinton because of her health care plan. I guess the important thing to do if Senator Obama wins is what Twinmom did with her Woman's Issues thing- make sure they know how you feel. If there are more people like you, and I'm certain there are, then I know Senator Obama will certainly take these things into consideration and modify his platform to accommodate them.

Besides, I'm sure that Senator Clinton, in whatever capacity she ends up, will be right there at the forefront of the fight for Universal Healthcare. So just because you'll support Senator Obama doesn't mean, of course, you have to stop supporting Senator Clinton in that endeavor.

I have a cousin who suffers from MS so I know how devestating it can be. My heartfelt sorrow for your loss, and deep gratitude for sharing your story.

You make me so proud to support Hillary too :)

Great Diary!!!

It amazes me how many people remember what Hillary (or Bill) did for them "at the ground level". I came to her late, just in January. It's been immensely impressive.

Thank you for this diary.  I'd rec it if I could.

Healthcare was my number one issue, too -- that seems to be the case with a lot of Clinton supporters. I have a lot of reasons to worry about it. And I really dislike Obama's plan... Ah, well. I expect I'll get over it eventually (for the most part).

I'm an Obama supporter, but this is one of the issues on which I wish Obama would take a page from Hillary. It's beyond ridiculous that we are in the 21st century and in the richest country in the world and still so many people don't have health care insurance.

3 great diaries in one night.

Student Guy

ragekage

LDFan

Good job peeps.

Wonderful diary.  I'm sorry about your mom and dad.  Those personal loses are devastating, but you have turned that loss into positive energy.

Rec'd.

Thank you for the diary, it speaks directly to me. I live with MS and some days are tough, but I am lucky, I have a great job with full healtcare.  Many of my friends in the MS community don't, and they suffer and are forced to make terrible choices.

Some people just want to forget about all the good things the Clintons have done.  Not me, I remember and am grateful.  HRC's universal healthcare plan is what we need.  That's one of the main reasons I am sticking with HRC for as long as necessary, past June 3.  The issues are too real.  I have the honor of being a pledged HRC delegate, and she makes me so damn proud to keep fighting for the isses that matter.

wonderful.  I am an Obama supporter who agrees with you on health care (heck i am going to be taking care of people within 10 years and I want my patients to not to have to worry about whether or not they can afford something) on health care (I am slightly worried about how thin the mandate might stretch health care staff [not only MDs but nurses and pharmacists as well] but well overcome as we went into this because we care about our patients).

However I saw foreign policy as more important and from what I've seen out of Obama he sees things differently than in the past.  Al Giordano has a great article about foreign policy in latin America over at narconews here:
http://narconews.com/Issue53/article3110 .html
or about how he is willing to go and meet with leaders of countries we currently don't like.

The other reason I like Obama is he encourages volunteerism with his student aid policy.

I'm for democrats (as long as they hold true to what the party is now) and everyone who ran in the primary (except gravel) is a democrat.

this very personal story.

I ended up supporting Sen. Clinton for fairly similar reasons.  She was not my first choice (Sen. Biden was), but I moved to her camp when she stopped being the anointed one, and became a progressive !!

Hillary is very lucky to have great supporters like yourself.  Thank you for the heartfelt diary.

It really means a lot to me. I have seen too many people suffer and die from lack of basic health care early enough to make a difference. I have also talked to people that live in countries WITH universal health care, and they are very happy with it. They think we are INSANE for letting this go on like it has, with rationing done according to whether you can pay or not.

No one loses their home in those other countries because of medical bills, no one goes bankrupt.

When you start to bargain, you DON'T give away ANYTHING right at first. That is bad bargaining, and when you deal with the creeps that are making so much money from the suffering and deaths of 20,000+ a year, you don't want to give them ANYTHING.

If he gets in - he's basically put my life at risk because he doesn't want mandated health care for adults.

I'm paying over $22,000 for my health insurance premium through my state health risk pool because I'm fighting breast cancer. At the rate of the bi-annual increases, my premium has gone up 100% in 4 years and at that rate I will soon no longer be able to afford it. Why anyone would back the ONLY presidential  candidate who isn't willing to try for mandated health insurance is beyond comprehension.

I heard him in Houston telling us that he would only consider mandated health insurance for adults only after seeing how it would work for children before even thinking about doing so for adults.

Do you have any idea how insulting to hear a DEMOCRATIC candidate for the presidency who's getting taxpayers' sponsored health care that the luxury he gets from our taxes isn't goodenough for me and the 47 million other people who cannot afford it? It's simply disgusting because we know he's doing the biddings of his lobbyists friends and families of the health insurance and drug industries donors

It's a pleasure to rec a great diary written by someone whose 1st candidate choice is different than mine.

The first time I felt connected with Barack was, strangely enough, in reading about his mother. Her life story and views on life, in many ways, reflected those of my own mom. I had previously been inclined to vote for him on issues not connected directly to motherhood, but Ann Dunham sealed the deal for me. Go figure.

Looking forward to working together against the GOP.

Invisible rec and mojo. Very good perspective for a lot of us to hear.

I am moved and sorry to hear about your parents. MS is a horrendous disease. I had health insurance problems as well when I was diagnosed with cancer. I also went to UCLA and based my decision on health care, but I picked Barack Obama.

When I learned that the biggest difference between the candidates was health care, I looked up the person that I thought knew the most about health care policy: Rick Brown at UCLA. Rick was on Hillary Clinton's 1993 task force (I was just an epidemiology grad student at the time and had friends who worked for him). Rick's been working for universal coverage for a very long time and is now advising Barack Obama.

So this is a long way of saying, I think we will get there with both plans. I am a little scared for the mandated health care plan, I think it lacks initial buy-in by all stakeholders, which I think sunk the 1993 plan (my very limited opinion only, not a health policy expert, just an epidemiologist). Either way, I am looking forward to having a democratic President!

In 1995, a line was drawn across my life,and it has never been the same.  My 82 year old father was stabbed to death while working in his Christmas tree farm.  He was the caregiver for my mother who had Alzheimer's, and it fell on my husband and me to take care of her.  A month after dad died, my husband had a stroke.  Between trying to straighten out my dad's estate, dealing with the police, and taking care of my husband, it was impossible to do my job, which 1 1/2 hr away from where my mother lived.  I used the Family and Medical Leave Act to force my boss to give me a leave of absence to get my life back together...which of course, it never did, entirely.

I always felt thankful to Bill Clinton for FMLA.

And since then, my husband has had a heart attack, and I have had uterine cancer.  It is more and more difficult to deal with our insurance problems, because of our existing conditions.  Like the diarist, I support Hillary because of her health care plan.

But there is another issue that caused me to support Hillary over Barack. Social Security.

We rely on Social Security to get by.  And Barack has always had 'fixing Social Security' as one of his shticks.  I heard him be interviewed on George Stephanopoulous where he said 'everything is on the table'.  George had to force him to backtrack to say, well not privatization, but everything else.  Social Security does not need to be fixed--that's a Republican story.  What it needs is to be funded.  And when a Democratic candidate tells me everything is on the table, I don't trust them on Social Security at all.

I hope Barack will state unequivocally at some point that he is not going to change the benefit formula for the worse.

Thank you for your story. Here's some facts to keep in mind.

Obama has never supported privitization. He supports having people with more money paying more Social Security tax so it's better funded.

And while Clinton did sign the FMLA, it was about 2 weeks after he was sworn in. Congress had passed it twice already and Bush I had vetoed it.

Thank you very much for this moving diary.
I understand your concern for health care.

Being a Frenchman, I am extremely sensitive to
the foreign policy aspect of this contest. Well, part of what is foreign for you is not for me!
I support Barack Obama for several reasons, but, fist and foremost, because I think that of the three contenders, only he has the will and the mental frameset required to restore US foreign policy. He can make the world a safer and more peaceful place.

There's much talking about leadership. I think that, the world being what it is now, what matters is partnership. The US can be a strong partner and can play a major role in promoting humanistic values. For 8 years they have done the reverse and it has been very damaging. I think that Barack Obama's approach will restore US leadership, not by imposing it, but because its parners will naturally acknowledge it.

I think Barack Obama's philosophy is not just words. He showed that he could handle a campaign, he could animate a team and bring people together to work in harmony. This is the kind of human qualities which are required at this point in time. This 'moment'...

As a Frenchman I'm very much attached to our health system (for all its defects...). I really understand your concerns about that. In fact, I don't know much about Clinton's and Obama's plans,
only what they said about it in speeches and debates. I don't know if those plans are very elaborated at this stage. Still, I must say that,
from what I gather, Clinton's plan is, in my opinion, better. That is, I think that in order to really work, social security should be compulsory.

Having said that, I must add also that, for such a plan to work, it has to be passed, and accepted by the population. You absolutely need a very strong consensus.

That means that the plan has to be negociated, and whatever your starting position, the output will be very substancially different from that.

I don't know if the American public is ready for Clinton's plan. I'm not sure Clinton has the diplomatic skills required to make it pass and to make the necessary concessions. Her present attitude makes me understand why she failed on this the 1st time she tried. I think you have to work on the mentality of the public also.

So, perhaps, Obama's less ambitious and more pragmatic approach will prove more effective.

I just rec'ed.

Great diary. Thanks for sharing your personal story and why you support Hillary. Hillary has been a champion and advocate for universal health care, which is one of the reasons why I support her too. Rec'ed.

Excellent diary - and you actually invoked a civil conversation. THANKS!!

There are million reasons why I support Hillary.  There is not enough space for me to write it down here.  Thanks for the dairy.  

Thank you for your story. I've always been for universal health coverage for moral/ethical reasons.

This has been my number one issue when voting since my spouse was diagnosed with a serious chronic illness at age 39. When you have 26 years until you're Medicare eligible and know it will take several hundred-thousand dollars of medical care to get you to age 65, every decision you make in your life becomes about making sure you have health care coverage. It amazes me how people who haven't dealt with the health care industry have no idea how expensive and messed up the whole system is.