Condoleezza Rice on Health Care Secretary of State

Limited role for government providing healthcare insurance

When you think about healthcare reform, which of the following solutions is closest to your opinion?
• A. The Government should be the sole provider of healthcare insurance
• B. The Government should have a major role in providing insurance
• C. The Government should have a limited role in providing insurance
• D. Only private companies should provide insurance

Mother's 1970 cancer became a constant unwelcome presence

[When] the surgery was over, the doctor was mildly encouraging that the cancer had been caught early. She'd need to undergo radiation therapy.

When your mother is diagnosed with cancer you have to find a new normal. Once cancer enters your family's life it is a constant and unwelcome presence. I prayed every night that Mother's cancer would not come back.

As the daughter of a mother who had breast cancer, I can confirm that the perpetual anxiety caused by a parent's disease is passed on to a child very directly. When Mother was first diagnosed in 1970, the genetic implications of the disease weren't as well understood as they are today. But over my lifetime the fact that my mother had breast cancer has persisted as a dominant factor in my own health prognosis.

2001: Breast cancer scare from exam; mother died of it

God used the breast cancer scare to draw Condi to a place where she was dependent upon him as opposed to relying on her intellect and ability to reason, the same lesson she had grappled with and overcome in relation to her parents' deaths.

Give people freedom to access their own healthcare