When I wrote about how courageously Melanie Shouse of St. Louis fought for health care reform--even as she was losing her battle against breast cancer---it touched a chord in all who read about her life and death. I want to go a step further today, because time is running out to honor Melanie's last wish.

If you haven't already read my first post and clicked some of the links provided by oleeb and myself (we both knew Melanie as an intelligent force of nature), then a few paragraphs of background are in order.

Michael Sorkin, writing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

In addition to advocating affordable health care for everyone, she was an activist for clean energy, economic reform and public transportation.

She took the bus from her home in St. Louis County to chemotherapy in the Central West End and back home. Then she'd pick up a sign or banner and walk a picket line.

"This was an extraordinary woman, who never gave up hope that she could make a difference," said Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation.

Ms. Shouse grew up in Indiana, graduated from high school in Plano, Texas, and then from Texas A&M University with a major in biology.

She moved to San Francisco, where she met her future partner, Steve Hart, on a picket line. They were together for 20 years.

When she and Steve put all their money into opening a new business, Melanie had what she called "hit-by-a-bus insurance," a policy with a $5,000 deductible that discouraged using it for any reason except a clear catastrophe. But it wasn't clear what was happening when Melanie first began feeling ill. A year later, she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. She fought 4 1/2 years against the disease and to get the treatments that she should have gotten. But the company wouldn't pay, not even when friends protested and a congresswomen wrote.

Melanie died January 30th at the age of 41. As she had requested, her body was cremated in an Obama T-shirt in tribute to the president who, more than any other, had sustained her hope, even at the end.

But Melanie's last wish wasn't about a T-shirt. It was that those of us still living would finish the health care fight. Finish it right. And not even for her sake, but for our own. For all who otherwise will die while health care is bought and sold as a commodity--like credit default swaps--rather than provided as a service pursuant to human rights--like national defense or traffic lights.

Please visit Melanie's Facebook page, "No More Health care Deaths. In Honor of Melanie Shouse." The Info tab will show you four ways to help finish the fight.

The most important things you can do are to spread the word and to take action. Sign up to Take It to the Streets on Feb. 17 at rallies across the country.

Re-post this everywhere you can think of.

Get up. Rise up. Tell your government you want the change you voted for. No more lies. No more delays. No more excuses. No more free pass for inaction.

Get up! Do it for Melanie and the thousands like her - friends, sisters, sons - who die every year because our health care system is broken. Do it for the generations to come who will bless our names because we built a health care system that works. Do it for yourself.

Finish Health Care Right. Right now.