"She threw one of those take-this-job-and-shove-it tantrums, threatened to write a novel and wound up on Medicaid.

Grifter--she was married, and he was working. Welfare cheating by the middle class and she's not even embarrassed.

I think, now that she's doing so well, she should pay back the money she got from our tax dollars. How about it? Oh, and I'm not just saying that because you're Latina, but because I resent supporting your novel-writing ass.

Believe me, if copping some public assistance for a while means she got a $475,000 book deal, she's already paid us all back many time over in taxes. We should give more writers welfare if that's the way it works out. Solve the budget deficit in a year.

Actually, I had health insurance through the National Writer's Union when I left the Times, and intended to use that for the birth of my child. Sadly, the union cut health benefits to memebers a few months before I was to give birth. I was very ill, could not work, and my husband was home taking care of me. We had enough money to buy our own health insurance, but by then were living in New Mexico, where you couldn't buy your own individual health plan in those days. I had a complicated pregnancy, and my son was born via C-section; I reluctantly used public health insurance for his birth. To call me a "welfare cheat" is stupid and incorrect. Furthermore, the first federal tax check I wrote after selling my book was more than the cost of my operation, close to $80,000. I think I've paid you back, whiners.