Will you respond to me now, Mr. President?

Mr Obama,

I have written to you about job losses in the past and got no reply. I also wrote to you a few weeks ago asking for help or guidance. I was the woman with a painful tooth and no job and no resources to get it fixed. Ihaven't heard back from you and wanted to update you.

I still have no job. I still have no resources. I still have the painful and bleeding tooth! There are still no clinics to help someone like me, a middle aged woman who is too old for youth programs and too young for senior programs. I'm in the wrong ZIP code for many of our local social programs. I receive assistance with medical care through the county, but there is no help with dental issues for people like me.

Mr. Obama, time was I had a good job. My husband, an electrical engineer, had a good job. We had health and dental insurance to take care of these things. But now, after my husband and nearly 700 of his co-workers have lost their jobs over the past 2+ years and haven't found re-employment of any sort, being able to treat a dental issue is a distant memory for me. I used to enjoy a steak. Now I can hardly eat ice cream without excruciating pain. I know I'm not alone.

What is there for us? You campaigned on "HOPE". That came true... we HOPE to find work again soon. We HOPE that I can find someone to fix my tooth. We HOPE that our savings won't run out before we are able to work again. You campaigned on CHANGE. That came true, as well. We "CHANGED" from being solidly middle-class to being poor. Is HOPE and CHANGE supposed to mean, "I HOPE I can find some CHANGE in the sofa"?

You promised 8% unemployment, and we're approaching that... as more people give up looking for jobs that aren't there. When people still had the "hope" of finding a job and were still looking, though they were unemployed and collecting benefits-- they were counted among the unemployed. Now, they are counted as discouraged as their benefits have run out and no job has come up.

Mr. Obama, we need help. We need jobs. You pushed legislation through that requires us to purchase insurance, yet there is no paycheck coming for us to meet that mandate. We have always had insurance, when we had jobs. We could afford medical care. Now that millions more are out of work and cuts are being made to already overstrapped social services, we can;t afford it... much less dental care, which has seldom been covered.

WE AMERICANS NEED YOUR HELP! WE NEED JOBS! And we need much more than that... Please, help us. If you can't do that, then at least acknowledge us, the citizens, many of whom believed in you and the things that so far have not been delivered even though you made those promises.

Thank you, Mr. Obama.

Regards,

M. A.