The whole situation around Omar Rivera's cruel death is just sickening to me. I am a "white collar" working-class mother to two boys who had to contend every day for 3 years that their father and I were winging it without medical insurance. We've been lucky to have found a pro-active, pro-alternative medicine, health care safe haven in our family doctor's practice at the Sidney Hillman Family Practice. But our health care experience is not common for most New Yorkers. Most people jump from one practice to another in a game of health insurance coverage musical chairs. And those who are too poor to work out any payment scale have to contend with whatever they can get either through an indigents' clinic or whichever emergency room that may attend them. What's so horrible about Omar's death is that it reminds me of a "so true it hurts" bit in Chris Rock's stand up routine, Bigger and Blacker.

When I was a kid, I had to be near-death to see a doctor, so my daddy got into the habit of putting Robitussin on everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! [Impersonating his father and himself] Daddy, I got asthama! "Well here, take some Robitussin!" Daddy, I got cancer! "Here, take some Robitussin!" Daddy, I broke my leg! "Here, put some Robitussin on it... that's right, let the Robitussin sink in there."

When Chris Rock reminds us of how working class people of color seek health care when there's none, it's one thing. When the joke turns into a medical practice reality, the joke has turned into a nightmare. And this begs the republican question : Is this what we want when we nationalize Medicare? I think this is really an important issue democrats and pro-universal health care advocates need to discuss.