Dear President Obama,

My parents were married for 62 years. They met after my father finished six years of military service before and during WWII. My father was the first in his family to go to college on the GI bill and then to buy a house using VA benefits for a reasonable mortgage. He worked for the Dept. of Defense for his entire career, over 30 years. After raising three children, he and my mother retired to Florida.

Unfortunately, my father became ill with dementia at age 75 and my mother became his caregiver. My mother was not a well woman, suffering from debilitating arthritis and heart disease. She had coronary bypass surgery and several stints over the years of their retirement. Last year, at age 80 she was told she had to have another bypass surgery; the old one had become diseased.

My parents expressed an adamant wish that they never be placed in any kind of facility. Now, the family kicks in, my brother who lived here in Florida is no longer alive and my younger sister, age 51, was diagnosed with a Stage IV Glioblastoma, the year before. She was fighting for her life. I was in Thailand teaching at the International School of Bangkok (where Tim Geithner attended). My husband and I met in Thailand when we were Peace Corps volunteers in the mid-sixties. My husband went back to the US to continue our education and he chose to work in international development, ultimately with CARE and I taught ESL in the US and then in Bangkok. We lived in Bangkok for many years and were working to save for retirement and pay for our daughter's college education. We did get my daughter through college. My husband was at retirement age but I still had a number of years to work to achieve our financial goals.

When we got the call in Bangkok last year on March 5th that my mother was in the hospital, that meant we had to home because my father was alone in the house. We left 12 hours after we got the call and our life never went back to normal.

My mother survived the surgery (a surgery that probably shouldn't have been done on a woman of her age and health status) and she struggled for two months in a rehab unit (nursing home) only to die after three subsequent hospitalizations.

I never returned to Bangkok. My husband and I were given emergency family leave for the last quarter of school and after my mother died, I had to resign my contract for this school year.

I began looking for health insurance immediately. I had a three-month extension on my insurance from International School Bangkok. I could not find anyone that would give me insurance due to pre-existing condition (sleep apnea). Assurant Health finally offered me a policy at $1,300/mo.
As I have zero income now as a caregiver for my father, I cannot afford this insurance.

Florida offers a limited catastrophic policy ($50,000 lifetime limit) with a large deductible for $250/mo and that is what I have. I don't use it because I need to save it for that catastrophe that seems to be the norm in my family now. I am four years away from Medicare, if it lasts that long.

So, President Obama, I worked all my life trying to do the right thing and continue to live by those principles today. By doing the right thing in caring for my father, I am becoming impoverished and without adequate medical care. I cannot help my daughter with graduate school. She will be going into debt to follow her dreams and my husband and I sit here wondering what will happen to us.

I developed curriculum at ISB for global studies and cultural sensitivity and I was completing a second graduate degree at U of Illinois in Global Studies in Education. All of that ended when I had to leave my job to care for my parents and today, as I wake up every morning here in the USA, I wonder how in the time I was away (17 years), did US medicine become big business and only for the rich. I am deeply disappointed and feel completely let down.

I wish you well in your leadership to move this country to a better place but I am not optimistic that all the cogs in the wheel of medicine will come together to offer medical care equally to everyone and find money to cure this epidemic of cancer and Alzheimer's Disease we are facing in this country.

God's speed to you and your family. Thank you for working so hard to be our first TCK leader. It is inspiration to my daughter and all the children I have worked with over the years here and in Thailand.

Sincerely,
Liz Drahman