To the editor:

A friend of mine died last week because he didn’t have health insurance. His medical problems were not properly addressed because of his lack of coverage. He was 44 years old.

Is this a free country we live in? I ask you this as Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s energy company) takes over the contracts for oil in Iraq, as we promise education for the children of Iraq and national health coverage for the entire country.

One would assume that because we’ve proposed all these things for a country that we have devastated not once but twice, we would be sure to provide all these same amenities for our own people.

But we don’t. We continue to labor under the false pretense that our president is actually working for our best interest. He’s not, people. He is not the “salt of the Earth” as his handlers would like you to believe. The day he has to face hardship in his life is the day things might actually change. But, for now, we are content to let him play with his pals in their sandbox full of money and oil and live in not-so-blissful ignorance.

This country needs to open its eyes to what’s really going on. We need a change for the future to be brighter. This is not freedom we’re enjoying. And I know that I don’t want to lose another friend to a system that doesn’t care.

Layla McEnry,

Lawrence