I grew up on welfare in public housing, but I was determined to make a better life for myself. I also wanted to help others. After years of hard work and many hardships, I finally managed to earn a degree in business and took a dream job with a nonprofit that helps prisoners with re-entry, and through a state act has the authority to allow its volunteers to monitor conditions in the state and county prisons and provide compassion and support to prisoners with little or no outside contacts. While the pay was not the best, I thought at least I had good health care and disability benefits to count on. About three years ago my health inexplicably began to downhill. I was shuffled from doctor to doctor with no diagnosis. After much suffering and desperation I finally found out what was destroying me - Tertiary (or systemic end stage) Lyme disease. As the recent antitrust case in Connecticut so well illustrates, Lyme disease is a very contentious issue. It is now the number one epidemic in the US with no end in sight. There is still no reliable test and no cure. At this point I am so ill that I have lost my job, spent all I have on doctors bills and IV drugs that my insurance refuses to pay for and I will still need treatment, if I don't want to die from this horrendous PAINFUL killer disease. And, I may not get disability either, despite the severity of my illness which will leave me with permanent damage, as it wasn't diagnosed early on. Lyme is the first big test of what managed care can do to deny thousands of people health care they paid for and should get. Please, look into this issue (Lyme)as it is the perfect illustration of collusion with big Pharma, monster hospital conglomerates, greedy insurance companies, and the pathetic NIH and FDA. I don't feel I should die because they think they can pretend my disease doesn't exist. They have even gone so far as to attack physicians with the guts and compassion to try to treat Lyme patients. I want to live and get back to work helping others. God bless you and the First Family. I am so proud of you and pray that you will give America back her soul. We can and should do better. No one should suffer or die from treatable illnesses in this country simply because they cannot afford to pay.