(Cross-posted from the AFL-CIO Now Blog and Firedoglake.)

Anyone can get health care in the United States. Just ask George W. Bush. Last year in Cleveland, he had this to say to the 47 million Americans without health care coverage:

“I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

With emergency rooms serving as the Bush administration’s solution to the nation’s health care crisis, so many people are cramming into them, patient care now is at risk, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School.

But let’s be fair. Bush isn’t the only Republican leader who doesn’t get—or doesn’t care—that while the United States pays the most for per person health care coverage than any similar nation, we have lower life expectancy than most other rich countries.

Here’s what former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said in a recent debate:

“The reason health care isn’t working like a market right now is you have 47 million people that are saying, ‘I’m not going to play. I’m just going to get free care paid for by everybody else.’ That doesn’t work.”

Bad-mouthing uninsured Americans as “slackers” is not what the union movement, the progressive community, or just about anybody with an ounce of compassion supports.

So, to help candidates running for office this year understand what’s at stake, we’ve just launched an online survey. The 2008 Health Care for America Survey, jointly sponsored by us at the AFL-CIO and our community partner, Working America, runs through February and we will give the results to candidates at the state, congressional and presidential levels to ensure they understand what working families are experiencing. (You can read the stories here and vote on those you think make the most impact.)

Along with specific questions on affordability and quality, experiences with insurance companies, hospitals and doctors and suggested remedies, the survey also gives you the chance to tell your own story.

People are hungry to tell their experiences. The survey has been public only a few weeks, and already nearly 15,000 people have filled it out, while another 4,200 have taken time to write often heart-felt descriptions of their own experiences or of those close to them.

One such story comes from Diana in Philadelphia, PA.

“Two years ago, after working for all of a lifetime I was downsized from employment, the whole time of being laid off and receiving government benefits, it didn’t really occur to me that I would not have health care benefits for myself and my family. All through my life I had been head of my single parent household after my divorce. I also had the misfortune of not getting a penny in child support for my daughters. After a few months went by I realized that I didn’t have any coverage and I just couldn’t get sick. My younger daughter was entering college and had to have some type of coverage so I managed to get CHIP for her, but nothing for myself. Thank God, that I did okay physically and managed to stay well and when I needed a doctor I went to emergency and my credit still struggles with those visits. I was okay with the fact that my younger daughter had coverage and I just prayed to stay strong. That’s the part that scares me, so many other parents who may not be as healthy as I was. What happens when they may have a medical emergency will they just pray and hope that it will be okay? what about preventative medical services? Something about the whole thing is just not fair for citizens of a country such as ours.”

Please take the survey, vote on stories you think make the most impact, and pass it around. Lawmakers need to know.