It is a birthright for Americans to have quality health care regardless of their status in society and circumstance of life. Anyone opposed to that should hang their heads in shame and not attend a house of worship where principles of human dignity are celebrated.
Thousands of years of social evolution, with all the gory sacrifices made unavoidable because of pig-headedness and false pride, should have amounted by now to a more advanced civilization or at least a less-nakedly greedy society. But radio hosts, with $100 million-contracts, begrudge a worker laboring at two full-time, floor-mopping jobs the means to obtain chemotherapy for her infant. Taxing them an extra dime would amount to redistribution of wealth and class envy, their two bugaboos of “socialism.”
And socialized medicine is to them treachery because it flies in the face of the free enterprise system that allows doctors to be more entrepreneur than healer. America is apple pie and their slice comes in portfolio form.
Let’s just call it health care reform. Many thousands of union members rallied on Capitol Hill recently to push for this moral imperative. The model has not been determined, but some kind of universal health care is vital. Hopefully it will be based on systems in place in Europe.
Do not believe the American Medical Association’s claims of inferior care in the “old world.” Longevity is higher, infant mortality is lower and, in many other areas of comparison, the statistics are more favorable to Europe. If data-driven conclusions are accepted as measures for education and law enforcement, let them be relevant here, too.
My friend’s wife had lung cancer and not one doctor at Sloan-Kettering would accept his insurance, the most popular civil servants have in the city. The insurance company reimbursed pennies on the dollar. He went broke and she died.
Anecdotal claims supporting all positions are available, but let me leave off by citing a typical situation that shows up the lie that in Britain, for instance, health care is rationed or denied to the elderly.
My 89-year-old relative, who never worked and has no pension or significant assets, fell in her house, sustaining a fracture. She was in the hospital and then a facility where she got physical therapy and occupational training for two months. Before her release, her house was evaluated and changes made to make it safer for her. She was issued an emergency pendant to summon first responders. Twice each day, she receives visitors from the National Health Service to check on her. One of them does her food shopping. The medical doctor pays house calls. Total charge: zero.
America has the wealth. There is no excuse. We do not have the best health care in the world by a long shot. We profess to value the life of all people, but that value is calibrated to the depth of the money pocket. Let’s liquidate the hypocrisy, not the life’s savings of folks who have lived frugally and responsibly all their lives.
Support the unions and all people of goodwill who are prevailing upon their legislators to enact a system that does honor to this nation’s legacy.
Ron Isaac
Fresh Meadows
