Maybe you've been there: You're sitting in a bus shelter -- the kinds with seats and roof, sometimes even walls -- and someone else lights up a cigarette. You get to inhale their secondhand smoke, even when it lingers after they've put it out. They tell you they have every right to smoke inside a bus shelter. Maybe they have so far, but we can change that, and have them step far enough away from the shelter that we won't be breathing their secondhand smoke even after they put the cigarette out, we won't still be breathing that smoke.

Governor Paul LePage is trying to push a bill through the Maine State Legislature that would slash the DHHS budget by $220 million, leaving 65,000 low-income and disabled Mainers with no health insurance, and decimating programs and services that work. Mainers have been fighting these cuts loud and strong, and it is having an impact. But we need to keep up the pressure. By signing this petition, you are letting your representatives know that these cuts are just not acceptable. In Maine, we believe in taking care of each other, and we believe that when people have access to needed healthcare services it keeps our state strong.

The worst part is that I have health insurance. And it still costs me over $500 per month for co-pays, prescriptions and necessary lab work not covered by my insurance. Then there is the physical therapy and chiropractic care not covered by my insurance to help eliminate enough pain so that I can continue to work. Why are the "working poor" allowed to bleed to death?

Employees, including medical staff, have built up a tremendous amount of experience, and now they are to be let go just because Mayor Emanuel thinks he can save city budget money.

Current statutes of Trauma Care and Management in the Philippines are not adequately addressed. Its limited portrayal in every surgical service need to be recognized to allow a definite roadmap to the application of Advanced Trauma Life Support and its derivation of Trauma Levels of care applicable to every hospital. Philippine Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago introduced Senate Bill 2279 which seeks to improve Emergency Medical Services and Trauma Care by: (a) empowering the Department of Health to identify designated trauma centers, (b) establishing a National Clearinghouse on Emergency Medical Services and Trauma Care; and (c) providing for standards with respect to trauma care centers. A quick call to action by signing this petition to Tell the 15th Congress that it is about time to act quickly and pass Senate Bill 2279.

The United States of America has landed itself in one big, unhealthy, uncaring, disorganized, anti-intellectual, dollar-driven, wealth-centric lifeboat, after abandoning the big ship of 'prosperity-for-all' long ago, in favor of a selfish, but well-financed crew of dysfunctional rowers, who are directionally challenged, and whose course is never progressively beneficial to anyone still on board! By most estimates, we toss more than 100 people a day overboard to their deaths, because we WILL NOT (real Americans never say "cannot") establish a system of real Health Care that sees us as one people, all together, in the same boat!! Our antiquated, impotent system is LOSING LIVES!! Don't we HAVE TO CARE about that??! Please sign this petition for an equitably tax-funded, single-payer, Universal Health Care System that is state-of-the-art, and second to NO OTHER country on earth!! Please help make us healthy, by helping us to once again care about even the least able of our valuable citizens!!

Non-profit hospital systems should not be spending millions on advertising.

Adults with pre-existing health conditions continue to be denied health insurance until 2014. In the meantime, our health continues to decline unless we can afford to pay for expensive medications and treatment out of pocket. How many people could have led more productive lives just by receiving appropriate health care now, when it's needed? An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure!

We are asking that no cuts be made to Washington's 38 Critical Access Hospitals. The cuts would eliminate cost-based reimbursement for their care of Medicaid patients while saving only 1.5% of its total spending on Medicaid. A small savings for the state but would cause these rural hospitals to drastically reduce their services, cut their staff or possibly close.

Evidently due to budget cuts, in the last few weeks, many disabled patients on Medi-Cal through Anthem Blue Cross have gone in to their pharmacies to refill their prescriptions for Cymbalta and other medications, only to be told, as I was, "I'm sorry, that is no longer covered under your insurance program." "Oh," I said, "so, we have to do a T.A.R. for that now?" "No," she replied, "they don't do those anymore. They just don't cover it." Then she shrugged, and looked at me like she'd just informed me they'd quit carrying Dentyne. This is what happened to me. I am 52, on Disability (which is monetarily only around $700 a month, but is supposed to pay all my medical expenses, and fails to do so) for Severe Chronic Migraines and Bipolar Depression. I have other serious medical conditions as well, but the two most important medications in fighting the issues for which I was actually put on disability *for*, Migranal (migraines) and Cymbalta (depression) both of which are unique formulations, are no longer covered under Anthem's new drug formulary. The problem is that Cymbalta is a drug you cannot simply stop cold. It MUST be stepped down from slowly, and ALL physicians know this. However, NO ONE from the State or from Anthem thought to give ANY physicians, psychiatrists, or PATIENTS advanced warning that they would be cutting them off of their LIFELINE medication. So most, if not all, will find out, at the time they *run out* of their current prescription that it is no longer covered, and will be caught *without* a safety net of another drug that works for them that they would have already been able to transition into SAFELY - had they at least been given the courtesy of a forewarning. Or, they will, like me, just be out of luck entirely, because nothing else works and/or there are contraindications to all the other drugs for their condition. Because of the thoughtless disregard of the State of California, and the NEGLIGENCE of ANTHEM BLUE CROSS, we can expect to see a *rash of suicides*, as people who are least able to cope with the emotional and physical blow of such disregard, as well as the uninformed and forced withdrawal from the only medication that works for them, are left with no option but to leave their pharmacy empty-handed, in shock. The truth is, this looks suspiciously like the state is in collusion with Anthem in attempting to reduce it's rolls of "undesirables" by nudging along quite a few suicides. I am attempting NOT to be among them.

If all members of Congress and all federal employees were on Social Security like the rest of us, there would be more contributors and Congress would be motivated to fix the system.

I have had three amputations in my life and during the process I have met many other disabled people, think about our cherished Veterans who were sent and damaged, but in the end all of the people with amputations and disabilities who are trying to keep their houses. Please help us make a difference, we need it badly. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!