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In summary: in “A Fib,” I told how I had responded to EMC’s attending physician’s inquiry as to any past heart irregularities with “Nope.” More accurately, my response was “I don’t know.” I then went on to tell the doctor of a similar episode four years earlier, when I lived in Florida, that may, or may not, have been a heart problem; though in all honesty, at the time I strongly suspected it was.
It was perhaps 8:00pm, and I was casually taking the few paces from my living room to the bedroom. Suddenly I felt queasy. I began a profuse cold sweat. My skin was clammy. Before lying down, before calling 911, I took two aspirin. The fire personnel arrived in short order, followed by EMTs. The EMTs made a few cursory examinations, then STRONGLY urged me to let them transport me to the local hospital.
And here is the point I’m passionately striving to make: I refused. I refused because, without healthcare coverage, the fear of death or disabling stroke was exponentially less than my fear of catastrophic financial indebtedness! Visions of five and six-figure tabs roamed my consciousness as wide awake nightmares; tabs I would not be able to wipe out this time through bankruptcy.
For all I knew, I was facing death or possible permanent brain damage. But I refused medical attention because of something that terrified me more.
A very dear friend of mine lives in Florida. She is in her late-40s. Last year she underwent knee-replacement surgery. Months ago she lost her job, and with it her healthcare coverage. She cannot afford COBRA, and she has other medical issues that will prevent her from securing any health insurance that doesn’t come through employer-sponsored group coverage.
There are considerably many more than the published 50 million Americans who have either no medical coverage, or coverage that is so inadequate that they would, as did I, fear to actually access the coverage they have. It has been estimated that at least 80 percent of all Americans are but a single medical calamity removed from total economic ruin. Let me say that once more, for some who may not have been paying attention: at least 80 percent of all Americans are but a single medical calamity removed from total economic ruin!
For all who are suffering Dick Cheney levels of delusion, who believe the coverage they have now is sufficient, I want to disabuse them: They have zero healthcare coverage. Imagine suffering a debilitating stroke, or an accident that will keep you from your job for an extended period, if you can return at all. Think your employer will patiently bide its time through your absence from work? Really? Well, if so, let me tell you about this oceanfront property I’ve got in New Mexico. For all who like the coverage they have, they’re gonna love that view overlooking the Pacific . . . from Roswell.
This year could quite well be the last opportunity we’ll have during the next 20 years to amend, and to genuinely reform our current terrible healthcare delivery system. As 2010 is an election year, few, if any, politicians will summon the courage to make the tough decisions needed. And the only decision that will actually provide therapy for US business and consumers alike is for a single-payer overhaul.
But I hear three obstructing voices, loud and clear, against reform.
One is the old call that, “Government can’t do anything right.” Hmm. So the natural supposition is that we will be best served by forever trusting the private sector. These the same private enterprise KBR (Halliburton) folks who constructed the showers in Iraq, the ones that electrocuted our soldiers? Or Enron? Or the Peanut Corporation of American that manufactured salmonella-laced peanut butter? Or any of the multinational financial entities that landed us in the mess we’re in today?
Another squawk follows something along the line of, “Get the government involved and you’ll have healthcare being rationed.” Look, we’re getting “rationed care” right now, but at an unholy exorbitant cost! Fifty million Americans have zero protection and have to depend on their own resources for care. That’s rationing. And once in the doctor’s office or the hospital, every step, every procedure recommended by the healthcare professionals passes first through the combat flanks of the army of for-profit, private insurance company clerks who decide who gets what and for how long. That’s rationing.
Then there’s the stuck-pig squeal, “How ya gonna pay for it?” We’re paying for it right now, even when we think we aren’t. The perhaps 100 million Americans who forego prenatal checkups and annual exams that could prevent the sort of debilitatingly expensive downstream calamities . . . those are costs we’re quietly and unconsciously adding to the national credit card account.
The admin costs for Medicare hover around seven percent. For the VA, it’s five percent, or so. For the for-profit private insurers, on the other hand, it’s 30 percent! Add whatever profit margin facilitates the average eight and nine-figure compensation packages the execs get, and you’ve got the very definition of waste and abuse, if not outright fraud. Even cut to reasonable, the admin costs, the executive compensation, and the return to stockholders, will contribute a considerable percentage of the costs for universal coverage. The balance would be paid for through the externalities of returning competitiveness to US industry, competitiveness that will demand enhanced employment, enhanced employment that will spur further economic growth . . .. It’s a chain, not a yoke.
The for-profit healthcare industry has worked up some great ads, and their lobbyists are buttonholing every representative and senator they can, and reminding those politicians of the copious sums the various industry elements have poured into their reelection coffers.
It’s nearly two in the morning folks, final call. We’re up against it, fighting literally for our lives. Here’s what all of us have to do. First, we’ve got to quit pretending we cannot affect the outcome, because we can! Next, we have to take that conviction to heart and get everyone we know as involved as they are invested, which is heavily, whether they believe it or not right now.
Email every person you know. Confront them personally. For those who oppose a single-payer program, ask but one question, ask them to name just one social benefit the for-profit, private insurance system provides. Just one benefit; it’s not too much to ask. When they counter with something that disparages government involvement, refer to the above paragraph citing KBR, or the Peanut Corporation, or any of the sterling financial industry companies that . . .. Oh, hell! — referring back to today, to private enterprise for examples, shouldn’t present much of a challenge to anyone but a belly-up dead goldfish.
