“I spend my time fighting as hard as I can,” Raul Carranza says

Governor Jerry Brown recently introduced a new state budget calling for deep cuts in many departments. Looking through the huge document, it’s easy to get lost in the fine print — the line items, the pie charts — and overlook the people who will actually be affected in a very real way.

Raul Carranza is one of these people. The 22 year old was born with muscular dystrophy and can’t move or breathe independently; but his mind is alert and he is determined to speak it.

“It’s how you deal with these obstacles that define you as a person,” he said in a recent YouTube video, speaking through a voice-enabled computer.

With the help of nurses who read his lips, he has also spoken at several rallies in San Diego against budget cuts to healthcare.

“I spend my time fighting as hard as I can, for myself and others who can’t fight for themselves,” Carranza said.

Read More: Former UCLA Student Fights Budget Cuts to Disabled and Elderly|NBC Los Angeles 

Fundraiser Nets $2000 for Local Patient

By Dave Rice | Posted February 20, 2012, 7:44 a.m.

A fundraiser Saturday night at Balboa Park’s Centro Cultural de la Raza netted over $2000 to benefit Raul Carranza in his fight to restore Medi-Cal funding to pay for treatment related to muscular dystrophy, a disease that has left him in need of round-the-clock medical support.

Carranza later shared a laugh over what at the time was a rather embarrassing moment during the event. “My friend Sarah had asked me to dance. When we were dancing my hand got stuck on the control of the wheelchair and I started going around in circles but everyone thought I was dancing.”

The event was organized by Occupy San Diego’s Labor Solidarity Committee and featured musical performances and speeches from those involved in the Occupy movement as well as a silent auction with items donated by community members.

Read More: Fundraiser Nets $2000 for Local Patient | San Diego Reader

Miguel Castaneda reports on Occupy San Diego activist Raul Carranza’s personal struggle to stop cuts in funding for the disabled.

“My plan was to stay at UCLA, but I saw how stressed out my mom was,” Raul said. “My brother was also very sick at that time…my mother was falling apart. I dropped out of UCLA and re-enrolled in Southwestern College. I was in class up until this semester when I had to drop all my classes so I could focus of fighting the case full time. So they made me choose between fighting for my life or going to school.”

Raul threw himself into Occupy San Diego:

If it wasn’t for Occupy. I wouldn’t be where I am now. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure everyone gets the benefits that they need because I’m not the only one that this happened to. There are a lot of people that aren’t as lucky as I am, they don’t have the family support.

People don’t have this support and can’t fight for themselves, so the system just runs them over. I want to be able to help them as well.

Read More: The system runs over people | SocialistWorker.org

The brothers Pablo and Raul, innocent victims of the government’s decision

Raul Carranza Jr. and his brother Paul (Carranza) suffer from muscular dystrophy, a disease with irreversible consequences and terminal. But now the Gutierrez family that suffers the pain of cutting nurses and drug costs up to 40 percent by the state government of California.

Now that Governor Jerry Brown has confirmed that the cuts continue, his father, Raul Carranza (father) said during a demonstration held in the state building in downtown San Diego, “it is terrible that the government is sensitized and decide cut the health sector, when it does in others. “

Shortly before that launched a demonstration in front of the state of California on Front Street and B, in downtown San Diego, Carranza said that only the family knows how difficult and hard it’s been taking care of their children, and without further explanation, the government decides to continue cutting services.

Raul Carranza Jr. was the first to lose health services to have exceeded 21 years (currently 22), as if age was a good reason for the cut, said sad but inquisitive, the father of two boys.

He stressed that despite his illness, and care more than usual, requiring children have dropped out of college, expressing great intelligence, but sadly affected his movements or motor area.

Among the protesters were two nurses spent caring for Raul and Pablo Carranza, parents of both members of the union SEIU Local 212, and older people affected by the cuts, among others. 

Source: Cut services:The brothers Paul and Raul, innocent victims of the government’s decision | EL Latino

Federal health officials reject Gov. Jerry Brown’s

budget cut to Medi-Cal patients

San Diego activist Raul Carranza is one Medi-Cal patient. Last month, he and a group of Occupy San Diego supporters held a rally to raise awareness for the cuts.

In a speech at the rally, he said because of the Medi-Cal cuts, he was forced to drop out of school at UCLA to pay for the 24-hour per day care his Muscular Dystrophy requires.

Monday’s letter was a small victory for him and patients like him, he said. However, he would like to see some of the funding restored.

“There’s still a long way to go,” Carranza said. “I’m happy that Obama did that, but it’s just the first step on a very long journey.”

Source: State Medi-Cal Patients Won’t be Charged: Obama | NBC San Diego