Generation of giants appears to be gone

I attended the Niles West health care forum last month.

I favor a single payer public option, but I wanted to listen and understand why people are so opposed to reform.

People actually booed the statement that "every American should have affordable health care." The audible dissension made clear how polarized people are.

The insurance industry is spending $ 1 million a day lobbying against reform and the public option. Americans paying for health insurance should be outraged because that's our money being wasted.

When people booed, that went against everything I was raised me to believe.

My parents lived through WWII. Sugar and gasoline were rationed, people chose to sacrifice and go with less. My father was a WWII vet who's buried at Abraham Lincoln cemetery. Dad requested that three words adorn his stone - Sleeping with Giants.

Ordinary Americans rose magnificently to task performing extraordinary feats during wartime. They were his giants.

I was taught by example to work hard. Without my health, I can't work or pay taxes. I can't keep my twin daughters in college or help my elderly mother or neighbors. Without my health, it would all be for naught.

Are we so jaded, fearing the government so much that we'd boo for every American to receive affordable care? If so, we have fallen far from that generation of giants resting with Dad.

I'll take a chance with my employee-based coverage if it means all can have the health care I have.

To Ms. Schakowsky, Senators Durbin and Burris and President Obama, please don't allow private interests to cripple this opportunity. Do what is right.

Vote to provide affordable health care, not only for those who can afford private insurance or work for a company that provides it, but for all Americans.

Doris J. McGinness

Des Plaines