Ever since I volunteered on Thursday nights in the early 1980s at a Free Clinic held in the basement of an old church in Fayetteville, AR, I have known there is something seriously wrong with the health care system in the United States. The things I saw there felt more like a third-world country than a thriving modern society and I will never forget those people or their dire situations. I kept asking myself how wide the cracks were that would allow this many people to fall through the system.
Unlike all other industrialized nations of the world, some people here in the US appear to take the attitude that health care is a privilege, not a right. However, since the United States presently is ranked 37th in the world for quality health care by the World Health Organization (www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html), behind places like Chile and Costa Rica and the rest of the western world with so-called "Socialized Medicine" or Universal Health Care, we are obviously doing something wrong.
When 1.85 million Americans file bankruptcy each year due to medical bills, which equates to one-half of ALL bankruptcies filed in this country, we are obviously doing something wrong. But it is very hard for us, as Americans, to accept that we might be doing anything wrong; that we aren't the biggest and the best and don't know more than everyone else.
Unless someone is extremely wealthy, each one of us is just one catastrophic illness or automobile accident away from bankruptcy. And without the proposed "Public Option" included in the health care reform legislation, we have no place to go when our insurance cancels us for reaching our "lifetime maximum benefits", or when we have a pre-existing condition and no one will insure us, or we lose our job and can't afford the $500-$1000 a month premium for COBRA or private insurance. Currently, WE HAVE NO PLACE TO GO.
The Public Option provides that safety-net and gives us a place to go for coverage should the unthinkable happen. Of course insurance companies oppose this, are spending millions on misleading ads, and are feeding the vast vacuums in the minds of the lunatic fringe with rhetoric and talking points so absurd my beagle wouldn't even believe them. I understand this completely because presently, they have no competition and want no alternate option. This is their livelihood we are messing with. But my friends, this is our LIVES they are messing with.
If you have Medicare, Medicaid or Veterans benefits, you already have government-run health care (i.e. "socialized medicine"). And in most cases, it is working very well, so you do not have a dog in this fight. But if you are on Medicare, Medicaid or have Veterans benefits and you are opposing health care reform, you are attempting to deny others the benefits you presently enjoy
Consider France's national public health insurance system, Securite Sociale. It is a hybrid system the French DO NOT consider socialized medicine like the plans in Great Britain and Canada. France spends $3500 per capita versus the $6100 per capita we spend in the United States. France is ranked #1 in the world for premium health care, while the United States is ranked #37, spending almost twice as much. And despite the propaganda put out by the extreme right-wing, there is no waiting list for elective surgery, no pre-authorization required, and no death panels.
Closer to home, we have our Commonwealth of Massachusetts with its own successful universal
health care coverage. It is not bankrupting the state as early naysayers predicted and seven out of 10 voters say they support the plan, with only one out of 10 people saying it should be repealed. While it has no "public option" attached to it, the people who cannot afford it receive a subsidy. Coverage is mandatory and so far, there has been a way to cover everyone.
My mother died last year after horrific 8-month battle with pancreatic cancer. About 25 years ago she purchased a cancer insurance policy and paid the premiums religiously, sometimes when it wasn't easy to do on a school teacher's salary. When she died, the company refused to pay the claim, based on a minor technicality. I wonder how many other people have been suckered into these worthless policies?
I am a cancer survivor. Every day of my life I wonder what would happen to my family financially if the cancer returned. There are millions of Americans just like me who are haunted by these thoughts. This should not be an issue for us.
I watched the hysterical people at the Town Hall Meetings, trying to figure out why in the world anyone would be so passionate about preventing someone else from getting health coverage. I had seen the web sites sponsored by the insurance companies, listing the Town Hall Meeting sites, with a list of "talking points" the extremists were instructed to yell out to disrupt the speaker or discussions. I believed there were people there with legitimate concerns whose voices were drowned out by these fanatics. Why????
Then, two weeks ago when the woman screamed "I want MY America back", it all became very clear. The proverbial "light" switched on for me as I watched that angry woman. This wasn't about health care at all. This fringe element of our society has been waiting since November to vent their anger and hatred over the election of our new President. The Town Hall Meetings are the first opportunity they have had to vent publicly what they have felt privately for so many months. The "Browning of America" is a concept this woman and many like her can not handle and by screaming about "HER" America, she is excluding the fastest growing segment of our society. Predictions are that by 2050, Caucasians will become a minority in America. Fortunately for her, this woman will not be around to see that.
Maybe after the health care situation is resolved, we could have Town Hall Meetings to educate people about "whose" America this really is. And maybe at those meetings, that lady and others like her could take a look around the room, notice everyone doesn't look like her, and realize America belongs to those people too.
But then........maybe someday pigs will fly!
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