A DREAM DENIED:

Eric’s sister, Veronica De La Cruz, a television news journalist and former CNN anchor, took her brother’s plight public and rallied the support of thousands of total strangers through a remarkable online campaign. In addition to applying public pressure and media attention to help resolve his Medicare coverage, she – with the help of everyday Americans and celebrities like the band Nine Inch Nails – raised nearly $1 million to help pay for medical costs. Most importantly she cast a bright spotlight on glaring holes in our current system which exclude people with pre-existing conditions and those who cannot afford the spiraling costs of health care and insurance.

Although Eric was eventually transported to a California hospital with a transplant program, accepted for treatment and placed high atop the transplant list as a status 1A candidate, his doctors commented that he likely arrived “two years too late.” Indeed, the years-long delay in his admission to a transplant facility – largely due to the lack of affordable insurance – had rendered Eric too weak to undergo the transplant he needed.

Sadly, five years after being diagnosed and after months of courageous struggle in the hospital, Eric De La Cruz passed away on July 4, 2009 from complications related to his heart ailment and subsequent surgery.

Though his suffering is over, his battle is not. His family and thousands of his supporters have vowed to continue to fight for the lives of an untold number of other Americans who may also lose their lives because of flaws in the U. S. health care system.

Veronica De La Cruz and the supporters she organized have created petitions, web sites and grassroots communications to advocate for Eric’s treatment. Those efforts will now be shifted to advocate for the rights of all those uninsured or under-insured Americans who face the same obstacles. Funds raised will go toward the payment of bills the family has incurred as a result of Eric’s medical treatment, as well as toward the financial needs of other patients in his situation, like Kelly Williams of Las Vegas, who recently received a heart transplant and has received help from Veronica and Eric’s supporters. Personally, Veronica is also committed to the passage this year of a health care reform bill that makes it illegal for insurers to deny or drop coverage due to pre-existing conditions and that includes public plan options. Please think of Eric De La Cruz when telling your friends – and Congress – that health care reform is about more than politics. It is about a basic human right.