August 15, 2009 at 13:59:32

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Why Won't Universal Healthcare Be Provided?

By Emily Spence (about the author)

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In addition, no one openly communicated with him except for Anne, during which time she discovered that he felt ill. As such, she pleaded with the doctor to briefly visit with the boy, who was now a young teen.

In response, the physician got very angry with her and told her that he could get in trouble with the clan's rulers if he did so. Yet, she persisted and, finally, he reluctantly went to the dump and lightly examined the lad, after which he gave him a few tablets and told him to take one a day.

After leaving the youth, he told Anne that she should never ask him to do such an act again and that he only gave the teen sugar pills. Why?

He explained that, aside from having to save the "real" medicine for the strongest members of his community, he realized, upon checking the boy, that he had less than two months to live from parasites that were currently in his intestines, but that were slated to move throughout his body. In short, he was bound to die in short order. Moreover, there simply were no pain drugs to spare to help him through that two month crisis period. No, there were none at all.

He further added, "I neither have the time, nor the supplies, to spend on a hopeless case like him. I need to use my energy and treatments for people who I CAN help."

"Unfortunately, your country and other wealthy ones have lured our doctors and nurses away with promises of high salaries. I am sorry that you have such a scarcity, too, but it makes my time all the more difficult as I have far too many people to tend and not enough money to pay for life-saving medication, equipment and stores of simple things like thermometers."

"So if you pray, then pray for that boy. It is all that we can offer him."

==

To make up for shortfalls such as this doctor described, the Cuban government, thankfully, sends medical goods and personnel out of the country every year. Cuban medical internationalism is the Cuban program, since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, of sending Cuban medical personnel overseas, particularly to Latin America, Africa and, more recently, Oceania^[1], and of bringing medical students and patients to Cuba."

In 2007, "Cuba has 42,000 workers in international collaborations in 103 different countries, of whom more than 30,000 are health personnel, including no fewer than 19,000 physicians."^[2] Cuba provides more medical personnel to the developing world than all the G8 countries combined,^[2] although this comparison does not take into account G8 development aid spent on developing world healthcare. The Cuban missions have had substantial positive local impact on the populations served..."

"In August 2006 the United States under George W. Bush created the Cuban Medical Professional Parole program,^[28] specifically targeting Cuban medical personnel and encouraging them to defect when they are working in a country outside of Cuba.^[5] Of an estimated 40,000 eligible medical personnel, over 1000 had entered the United States under the program by October 2007, according to the chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart.^[29] However the promised fast-track visa is not always forthcoming, and some applicants are trapped in limbo, unable to enter the US and unable to return to Cuba. ^[30]" [1]

Meanwhile, the plot to entice Cuban medical staff to the USA fits well with the overall vision held by many American officials. As George Kennan, former Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff, makes clear: "We have about 60% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about such vague and unreal objectives as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better." - George Kennan, former Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff, in Document PPS23

However, George Kennan, when he wrote this commentary, did not realize that American would be involved in a quiet class warfare in which the country would be increasingly divided between the haves and have-not. In other words, the nation is increasingly losing its middle class.

Left in its place are very affluent individuals, and a rising number of poverty-stricken ones whose homes have been foreclosed, whose jobs have been off-shored or simply eliminated, and whose medical coverage is nonexistent. What's more is that the latter group have as little worth to most of the wealthy crowd as do the nearly destitute, sick foreigners from whom the Cuban medical workers were enticed.

Who cares, after all, whether the destitute masses get any healthcare delivery abroad or in the USA? Instead,all's quite well, according to some politicians, as long as America can stick it to Cuba and pick up some great human resources along the way!

In a similar vein, the American healthcare industry, itself, is doing quite fine despite the economic downturn and loss of some customers who could no longer afford high premiums. A typical example is provided by the United Health Group with sales of $75.4 billion and a profit margin of $4.7 billion. This largess is particularly lucrative for its CEO, Stephen Hemsley, who received $744,232,068 in unexercised stock options.

If he seems out of the ordinary in terms of personal gain, then consider that prior BCBSMA chairman and CEO William Van Faasen received over $16 million as part of his overall retirement benefits in 2006 while BCBSMA President and CEO Cleve Killingsworth obtained over $3.6 million in payment for 2007. Of course, there's always plenty to spare for them both as the company produced almost $209 million in net income in 2007.

Even so, greed, itself, often has no boundaries. So when the insurer's net income dipped 49% a year later, Cleve Killingsworth was expected to have garnered around $4.3 million during 2008 at the same time that board members gained a 33% income increase to $40,000 for being on a few committees and going to occasional meetings.

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