File this story from Salem, Oregon in the "only in America" category:
A woman fighting a terminal form of bone cancer is trying to raise money to help pay bills with a few weekend garage sales, but the city of Salem says she’s breaking the law and is shutting her down.
Jan Cline had no idea, but the city of Salem has a clear law that states a person can only have three yard sales a year.
Cline has been selling her stuff in the backyard for a few weekends and said she thought she’d be fine by keeping the sale out of everyone’s way.
“It’s a struggle,” Cline says. “It’s a struggle for me because I’m very independent, used to taking care of myself.”
She’s run businesses and supported herself for years but this summer she was diagnosed with bone cancer.
“It’s a bone marrow cancer that eats through the bones and causes holes in the bones so that just by walking I can break a bone,” she says.
In one day she lost her independence, her ability to work and earn an income that could pay for all those medical bills.
Let me be clear: this isn't about the yard sale. Well, in a sense, it is about the yard sale.
How dare any country force a person with terminal bone cancer to hold a fucking yard sale in order to stay alive?
This is savage, cruel, and anti-life.
And, her neighbor, well...
So she decided to sell what she owned. The sale was bringing in several hundred dollars each weekend until one neighbor complained and she got a visit from the city.
“He said, ‘I’m sorry. Rules are rules.’”
Cline says she understands the city is trying to prevent nuisances in neighborhoods but she doesn’t think she’s causing any trouble.
I hope her neighbor understands there's a hot place in h.e.double.hockey sticks for people like him.
In any sane country with a single payer, Medicare-for-all-style system, this would not even be an issue, because there would be no need for a yard sale in the first place.
If you want to help Jan Cline, you can donate here.
According to her donation site, she doesn't have insurance, because we all know the big-profit insurers -- where profitability is not sacrificed for membership -- don't care about saving her life:
Some things that were not known when we started this site for Jan... She doesn't have insurance! That the garage sales she was doing are all she can do to help try to pay for her treatment and to live. So many things are coming out and the word is spreading like wildfire... Thank you all for all you are doing.. no matter how little or big... it makes a difference and you all are the heroes in this.... Thank You from the bottom of our hearts!!!
How do the bastards at Aetna, CIGNA, WellPoint, Humana and United Healthcare that perpetuate this broken system -- and earn billions from its inhumanity -- sleep at night?
Screw those evil assholes for forcing us -- through their incessant lobbying and greed -- to have a country in which you have to sell your life's belongings to have a chance at life.
Video below the fold...