Your stories

Leslie and I have heard from a lot of other people who have had problems with our current medical system. Most people who have heard Mike’s story have been horrified by how long it took him to get the care he needed.

But many have told me they don’t want to share their story because “it’s not as bad as Mike’s.” None of us are interested in rating who’s the worst off. We’re more interested in having as many people as possible share their experience. Whether you’ve had problems getting treatment and insurance, had to go into debt to pay medical bills or are stuck in a job to keep your medical coverage, we want you to tell us about it!

Your stories contains 8 posts

Bobby Butterworth

My Friend, Bobby Butterworth had some chest pains a month ago, on a Thursday. We told him to go to the ER. He decided to wait the evening, because he had no insurance - He felt a hospital bill would bankrupt him and leave him on the street (the ER asks for money up front [...]

Charitable Groups

Happy Sunday to you all.
I was sitting in a coffee shop and reflecting on the amount of help given to my family through the years. My sister was born with a cleft lip/palette. Shortly afterward, my father broke his back when he fell off a building he was working on. I try to remember how [...]

Held hostage by our jobs

The movie “Sicko” gave Michael Moore’s dramatic perspective of our healthcare crisis. My perspective is more limited, but equally real, for any Sarah Palin fans out there.
I had not had much reason to think about the situation until I moved three years ago. Until then, I had been fortunate; I had always had health insurance. [...]

Insurance for the Self-Employed

I was successfully self-employed a year ago, I didn’t have health insurance yet because I could not afford it despite making a decent amount of money. I was shopping around to try to find some. Then I got unexplainably ill, I went to every type of doctor and thousands of dollars later was diagnosed with [...]

Other People’s Stories

We’ve been hoping to get some people to tell their own stories here — a couple of friends have told me they don’t want to be the first, or they don’t think having to stay in a job they hate because of the insurance compares to losing a kid.
All the stories are valid. People shouldn’t [...]

I made it.

So I made it on to the site, I really miss Mikey, Im the little cousin that could. I would frequently call mikey when everything was down and out on my end and mikey always gave it to me straight. I am just like him in his sense of humor and “Boyd” way, you dont [...]

Go Duke!

I don’t really care about sports, but I am a huge Duke fan. Almost irrationally so. My blue runs Duke Blue. When there was the controversy with their lacrosse team, I couldn’t believe they had done anything wrong. If it had been any other school, I would have thought something was suspicious with the whole [...]

hello lifeomike

A wonderful tribute to Michael, and to all who have died at the hands of our greedy, for-profit health care system. It is unconscionable that anyone in this land of obscene wealth should die because they lack access to health care. Even though I’m Mike’s aunt, I didn’t know him well. I’ve gotten to [...]

Help Life o' Mike

We need your help now more than ever. Your tax-deductible donation will help us get Patient Pals and Family Friends off the ground. Please consider a gift in honor or in memory of a loved one.

Patient Pals & Family Friends volunteer training

Our Feb. 27 training had to be postponed, but we have rescheduled. Join us 8 days, as we train our next group of volunteers for Patient Pals & Family Friends. The four-hour training will run 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and will include lunch. Patient Pals are people who have experience with an illness or disability. After training, they will be paired with someone who is newly diagnosed or disabled. Family Friends will be volunteers who are paired with family members of people who are ill or disabled, and will have been through the expeience of having a loved one with illness or disability.

In Loving Memory

Life o' Mike has participated two memorial services to remember those who have died from our broken health care system, one in Asheville and one in Raleigh. If you would like to organize more of these services, please contact lifeomike@gmail.com and we will help put it together. The services include stories, prayers and information on how people of faith can make a difference. About 45,000 people die each year because they don’t have health insurance, according to a recent study by Harvard Medical School and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That breaks down to one American every 12 minutes. Those people can be honored in the service by a bell chime and a moment of silence every 12 minutes in the service. For more information, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712.

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