Cancer victim angry about the coverage gap

Dan Daskus, a machine operator from Schuylkill County, is beating cancer.  The Hodgkin's lymphoma that attacked his body in 2007 is in remission.

But in the meantime, Daskus has lost his job, lost his employer-provided health plan, and fallen deeply in debt.  His pickup truck has been repossessed and he fears losing his home through foreclosure.

According to a September 28th article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daskus never used to pay much attention to politics or the nation's problems.  Now that has changed.  Cancer and poverty has changed his outlook.  He's registered to vote for the first time.  And he is furious with the way things are. 

"I'm mad because my tax dollars go to bail out an investment bank because too many millionaires were losing money, but I can't get help from a system that I had paid into my entire working life.  It's time to change the system."

Daskus will need many more tests and treatments and must have insurance to pay for them.  Yet with his preexisting cancer and its side effects, he believes he will never be able to afford private insurance himself.  "I may as well wither up and die," he said.  "In a year's time, if I can't work, and without any income, I'll lose the house and be in the street."