My mother contracted Alzheimer’s in her mid 70s (about 20 years ago) after a fall and a hospital stay that required giving her morphine for the pain. Although she her broken ribs healed, her mind was never the same. Her general forgetfulness turned into otherworldliness. The cost of in-home daycare was prohibitive and after we got home, still wiped us out each night trying to keep up with her. She was still ambulatory, but was out of our control — sort of like a large 3-year old. After a few years of shuffling her back and forth between family homes every six months or so (my brother in Massachusetts, a cousin in Florida and eventually me in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico), It was obvious we couldn't care for her that way any longer. She had worked all her life at low-income wages, had her own home, but couldn't live there any longer alone and her income was only about 600 dollars in social security per month. We looked into rest homes in Massachusetts, where my brother could keep an eye on her, but we couldn't afford them — the minimum cost was about 3,000 U.S. per month. My brother and Icould only come up with about 400-500 dollars per month each from our meager incomes. So we sold her home and she stayed in Mexico, where a rest home run by a well-respected gerontologist could take care of her for less than 14,000 dollars per year, everything included.She got progressively less responsive and finally couldn't recognize her family. Eventually, after almost eight years here in Mexico, even with us chipping in the money ran out, and we looked for other options. Ex-Governor Mitt Romney had run for president and while bad mouthing government-paid health care to appease the Republican base, but had left a fantastic system in place in Massachusetts. So we flew Mom home from Guadalajara (not an easy task) and worked the system for a couple of difficult months with expensive in-home care until we were able to get her into a rest home in Hyannis, were my brother could see her a few times a week and other nearby relatives could check in on her. The state health care system paid for everything and even left my brother with a few dollars each month from what was left from her meager social security so he could get her hair cut, buy her new clothes, some glasses so she could see us, ect. She passed away three years ago at 91 years old.We were thankful that she was well cared for her last three years in her home state and that we weren’t bankrupt in the process. I think that people who work their whole lives and play by the rules shouldn’t be dumped because they weren’t in a high-earning bracket.Most of the people I know make less than their parents did in the 1950s ‘60s and ‘70s, when the U.S. working class had pretty good wages and benefits. My dad, a fellow who never went to college, but is one of the Great Generation, who went to WWII and worked for the federal and state governments, makes more with his various pensions than I can take home with my white-collar job running my own business. That sums up a lot of working folks situations these days. If health care for the working class isn’t a priority for a nation that spends more on health care then any country in the world, then why should national cohesion be expected?How can we be expected to be good citizens when the country takes us for granted? I don’t advocate a socialized economy, but I think what I’ve read and heard about universal health care coverage is part of what makes the United States a great nation. It takes care of its own.I do not think that leaving the half of the nation that can least afford it to fend for itself when the chips are down is part of the American dream, that the Great Generation fought for or part of the legacy they left us. I've lived in Mexico for the past 27 years and see what unequal systems can do to destabilize national cohesion — and this in a fairly homogeneous country. In a country like the U.S. where more than 30 percent of the population are immigrants, only the rule of law and the idea of fairness can keep the country united. Don't let inequality in one of the most basic situations in life —the health of the nation's people — make the country I have been mostly proud to call mine turn into a place where only the rich can survive. Sean Godfrey Former Massachusetts resident Registered Democrat