St. Louis healthcare activist dies Melanie Shouse

Last week, Melanie Shouse died. She was a pro healthcare change activist and major Obama supporter in St. Louis, Missouri.

She died of cancer and had limited insurance. Alas, that is common enough story in Missouri where the state house hopes the sick die and die quickly if they do not have money. So sad is the fact that in the St. Louis area, St. Louis has some of the best, most modern tech and best doctors/hospitals in the world.



She will be missed.



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from labor vision



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From St. Louis Post Dispatch:




Melanie Shouse fought to her death for health care reform
BY MICHAEL D. SORKIN
Thursday, Feb. 04 2010

When Melanie Shouse began feeling ill, eventually finding a lump in her breast,
she couldn't afford a doctor. She and her partner had just used their savings
to open a business.

A year later, doctors told her she had terminal, stage four breast cancer.

She spent the next 4½ years fighting for health care reform that she didn't
live to see pass.

Ms. Shouse died Saturday (Jan. 30, 2010) at her home in Overland. She was 41.

In addition to advocating affordable health care for everyone, she was an
activist for clean energy, economic reform and public transportation.

She took the bus to and from her chemotherapy appointments in the Central West
End. Then she'd pick up a sign or banner and walk a picket line.

"This was an extraordinary woman, who never gave up hope that she could make a
difference," said Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation.

Ms. Shouse grew up in Indiana, graduated from high school in Plano, Texas, and
then from Texas A&M University with a major in biology.

She moved to San Francisco, where she met her future partner, Steve Hart, on a
picket line. They were together for 20 years.

They moved to St. Louis and opened Sweet Meat Stix in St. Ann, selling meat
from humanely raised beef.

She set goals for surviving her cancer. She campaigned for Barack Obama for
president, telling herself she had to make it through the primaries, then
Election Day and, later, the inaugural.

In a speech in November at the Arch grounds, she spoke about the need to "take
on the Big Insurance Monopoly and liberate American families from the slavery
of skyrocketing insurance premiums and canceled coverage, which leave millions
of us in a state of perpetual fear and insecurity ..."

Using herself as an example, Ms. Shouse said she had put off going to a doctor
because her health insurance policy had a $5,000 deductible. She called it
"'hit by a bus' kind of insurance."

When the insurance company wouldn't pay for a treatment that Ms. Shouse
believed would help her, friends protested at the company.

Insurance officials refused to accept their petition and called police,
recalled a friend, Kathy Geldbach. One of the police officers took the
petition, "marched up the company's steps and strongly encouraged those men to
look at the petition," Geldbach said.

U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut called Ms. Shouse a week ago in a
final, unsuccessful effort to get the insurance company to approve the
treatment.

Ms. Shouse did extensive research trying to help herself and others, said her
oncologist, Dr. Cynthia Ma.

"She was a very special person; I wish that we had been able to do more," Ma
said.

Ms. Shouse requested that her body be cremated wearing her Obama T-shirt.

Friends and family plan a celebration of her life at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 14 at
Central Reform Congregation, 5020 Waterman Avenue.

In addition to her partner, among the survivors are her parents, Marianne and
Carl Shouse of Prairie Village, Kan.; two sisters, Maria Duda of Tampa, Fla.,
and Michele Macready of Vancouver, British Columbia; and her grandmother, Kay
Holtzman of Overland Park, Kan.

Memorial contributions can be made to Women's Voices Raised for Social Justice,
412 Greenleaf Drive, Kirkwood, Mo. 63122; Susan G. Komen for the Cure, St.
Louis affiliate, P.O. Box 790129, Dept. SK, St. Louis, Mo. 63179-0129; or St.
Louis Jobs with Justice, 2725 Clifton Street, St. Louis, Mo. 63139.


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