I sure don’t mean to toss a wet blanket on all of the well deserved holiday spirit that’s going around but the last few days have not been so cheery for me.

Lots of mail coming in from the USA TechGuide side of my virtual world, and not much of it is uplifting. A mother whose seven year old daughter has been immobilized for lack of repairs to the child’s wheelchair. An elderly man who spent his last dollars on a scooter that doesn’t do half of what the sales person promised. A woman who has had her power wheelchair in the shop 8 times this year. It’s down again and she can’t afford the repairs, again. A number of people slugging it out with Medicaid over wheelchairs. And another number of people getting slugged by Medicare over wheelchairs.

The sad thing is that there is no help out there for these people. No recourse, no justice, and very little to be joyous about even at this time of year.

It’s simple to see what has happened. We have become a society that can marginalize someone’s life and discount their existence over the cost of something as common and essential as a wheelchair or a repair.