I have been a fixture in a lot of health care diaries. It's one of my pet causes, it's just about an obsession for me since I don't have health insurance.

As we wait for Gustavo to make its move on the Gulf, with its trajectory very scarily looking like the one of Katrina almost exactly three years ago...

...it bears repeating that NOLA is still wounded, with no healing in sight.

More over the flip.

As promised, here's my diary about the June 19th rally against AHIP, the people supposedly "insuring people's health" but in reality they are parasites sucking the lifeblood out of our economy and our people.

I have a lot to talk about here so I think I'll put it behind the flip.

Usually people go to school to make themselves more marketable in the workforce. But now the crippling load of student loan debt may make it harder for recent grads to get employed. More below the flip.

(Forgive me if this was diaried already but I searched for one, really I did!)

Nick Colombo won another chance on life yesterday. The CyberKnife might not be a guaranteed cure for his advanced bone cancer, but at least the doctors will get a crack at using it in hopes it does some good. Even if the results are only palliative...that is, if they only reduce his pain and make whatever time he has more bearable...it's a good thing.

However, not every Nick Colombo of the world has a family savvy enough to go to the media to shame their insurance company into paying for a procedure they would rather not pay for to endanger their bottom line. And not every Nick Colombo of the world even has insurance, and that makes their chances even worse. Follow me over the flip, for I would like you to posthumously meet someone who was very near and dear to me, who was murdered by lack of access to health care.

I have seen some pretty ugly diaries in my time here at DailyKos. I remember the piefighting crap, I remember the circular firing squads. However, right now the ugliness has gotten so bad that I'm sure that there will be some scars left over once the primaries are done.

Follow me over the flip.