Second Public Square looks at health-care overhaul

Patricia Churchill posed the toughest question of the day to two Virginia congressmen at the Richmond Times-Dispatch's Public Square on health care in September.

What would Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd, and Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, do to help a relative of Churchill's who, in her early 40s, had lost her job and health insurance, only to be diagnosed with a stomach tumor?

Churchill, who lives in the Stratford Hills area of South Richmond, is still looking for an answer as The Times-Dispatch hosts its second Public Square on health-care overhaul tonight. She said she plans to be there for tonight's event.

"I just want to make sure that people who have been systematically left out are not left out," she said yesterday.

At the crowded event Sept. 21, she heard opposite approaches to her relative's problem. Scott said her relative would get the necessary care if Congress adopted legislation that included a public option plan to complete with private insurers in a new marketplace. Cantor said help is available for the uninsured from charitable organizations and hospital charity care.

"No one in this country, given who we are, should ever be sitting without an option in terms of health care," Cantor said.

Churchill, speaking after the Public Square, said she thought Scott's answer was "sort of theoretical." Cantor's reply was more personal, she said, but ultimately it resulted in a referral to a free clinic with limited resources.

Her relative, faced with a long wait for help, chose to seek alternative medical treatments instead of surgery. She is relying on financial help from family and friends.

"Nothing that the volunteer clinics are doing can begin to address that huge problem," Churchill said. "They can only work around the edge of it. It will take government action to do it."

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or .