Who deserves 24/7 health care? Raul Carranza! Why does he have to fight to get it? Because of the corrupt health care system we live under. Raul is a young man with dreams. He was attending UCLA, until his health care provider informed him he was no longer eligible for 24/7 health care, because he is considered a sub-acute patient, not acute. Raul has multiple sclerosis and has never walked a day, in his life.
Wheel chair bound, not able to feed himself, clothe himself, bath himself, or talk without the use of a computerized mechanism, Raul still has a brain that functions, even when his body doesn't. This young man is brave and willing to fight the medical system, to obtain a 24/7 home health care nurse. Not only does Raul have MS, so does his younger brother who also is wheel chair bound.
Yesterday there was a rally and march for Raul that started at the Statehouse, located on Front Street. Many great speakers spoke about the broken medical system. One Home Health worker who has worked in the industry for 25 years, talked about how she made minimum wage for 20, of those years. A veteran of the military paralyzed for the last twenty years, talked about how he did not want to go into a nursing home, to die. What the system wants is to put these people into nursing homes, where they will be discarded and die sooner than they would in their own homes. What kind of country is this? Demented!
All these pro-lifers talking about how they love the fetus and once the baby is born they hate it. They don't want to take care of it. They want to check people into a facility that could give a rats ass, about a living, breathing human being. But they want you to have those babies. Something is terribly wrong. That is why the Occupy movement began. That is why Raul Carranza and his brother are fighting for their rights.
After the rally we headed into the streets to march to the civic center. We headed south on front street and made a left at A St. We had taken over all lanes and the wheel chairs were not easy to push. The cops started on their rampage making sure we left a lane open. Raul, his brother, many of his family members, friends, occupiers and strangers chanted, 'People people can't you see, healthcare is a human need.'
About 75 people marched into the civic center. We had another rally open to anyone who wanted to speak out about the injustices going on, in the country and the medical field. A few mintues into the rally a man walked briskly through the rally followed by six cops. The cops said he had jay walked. The SDPD took the limelight away from two young men in wheel chairs who have never walked a day in their life. To give another man who had participated in Raul's rally and march a jay walking ticket.
Do these cops have compassion? Hell no! The SDPD are pathetic thugs and the real domestic terrorists in this town. Raul Carranza whose muscles do not work, but his brain does has the courage to speak out and fight all injustices. Raul is not afraid of cops who cannot think for themselves, or the idiots who say he does not deserve 24/7 care. No, Raul Carranza is braver than any SDPD officer out their, even though he lives in a wheel chair and has not walked a day in his life.
