Health Care Reform: The Time is (Still) Now

What can I say about health care reform that hasn’t been said by millions of other people millions of times over the past hundred years? Plenty.

The thing I am definitely not hearing, not from the politicians, not from the pundits, is that this issue is not about the doctors, not about the economy, not about the accountants and their number crunching, not about the federal debt, although I know that all of these considerations will help to shape the ultimate bill should it be passed in Congress. No, this issue is about health care, and especially about the people who need it.

Why don’t I hear a great hue and cry coming out of the electorate? We should be outraged that once more, the people we voted in to office, our senators and congressmen, are following in that time-honored tradition of their forebears who diddled around while millions upon millions of people were denied access to even the most rudimentary health care coverage.

If the argument were made that public schools were just too expensive and that ultimately, they would bring our financial system to its knees, would we stand still for allowing our children to grow up ignorant and unprepared for the work world? I think not! We all acknowledge that some basic skills and literacy must be afforded to all of our citizens so that they can lead a decent life, and, as the Declaration of Independence states, so that they can exercise their right to “the pursuit of happiness”. Imagine our country without universal education. Try. It’s unthinkable. The implications would be enormous.

But at least, if there weren’t public education, it would not be an immediate threat to that other inalienable right – the right to life. But that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about healthcare. I don’t know whether anyone has bothered to take a census of all of the needless deaths that occur every year in this country because forty-six million people were denied access to health care. It would be hard to quantify since there are so many variables that come into play when you’re talking about illness.

The cost of even the most basic medical care has soared in the past fifty years. Unless your name happens to be Oprah Winfrey or Bill Gates, trust me: you can’t afford it. You may, like so many hard-working Americans, be forced into bankruptcy. You may lose your home. You may simply die an untimely death because you can’t even buy life-saving medicine. You might even experience all of these possible outcomes.

And don’t get me started on the so-called “underwriting practices” which are standard operating procedure for the health insurers. I myself am a two-time cancer survivor. Thank God I had coverage. (We were blessed to have a wise and compassionate insurance broker. She helped us to navigate the treacherous waters of the insurance providers). Many, many people are not so lucky. Should you be denied health coverage because you are or have ever been sick?

It seems to me that many of our elected officials are a bit too cozy with big business, and big business includes big insurance companies. It also strikes me that many politicians are more concerned about future elections than they are about the welfare of their own constituents. And then there is another class of politicians: The politicians who are hell-bent on destroying our current president – at any cost. They belong to the “let-them-eat-cake” school of government, and should be treated accordingly. (Figuratively speaking, of course!)

We the People are being sold down the river at the very time when we need the support of our government the most. We who are or have been sick are a silent and large minority whose civil rights are being trampled every time we are denied access to decent medical attention. We who have lost our jobs and therefore lost our insurance are being doubly victimized for our misfortune.

Pray for enlightenment on the part of the Senate and the House. It’s an emergency and the doctor is out playing golf.

YES, TOGETHER, WE CAN

It was a miracle, plain and simple. The whole world held their breath Tuesday night as the election returns came in, state by state. First, McCain won West Virginia, Obama won Vermont. McCain got Tennessee and Texas, too. Texas was a very large red blob on the TV map. Lots and lots of red down the center of the country, the heartland, as it’s called. Too close to call in Virginia. McCain won Oklahoma. . . and so it went. But when Ohio was announced for Obama, I began to believe that maybe, maybe all the prayers of so many people had not gone unheard.

Art and I were sitting on our sofa when suddenly, there was a full screen with a large picture of Barack Obama and the words, “Barack Obama Elected President of the United States” (or words to that effect, I was frankly in a daze). I got a chill down my spine, and Art choked up. I couldn’t quite take it in, it was that massive. Art couldn’t stop dabbing his eyes. We held hands, spellbound in utter amazement.

Stunned, we listened to John McCain’s heartfelt and gracious concession speech. He did not acknowledge the angry outbursts from his disgruntled supporters. Sarah Palin stood by quietly, visibly shaken. We felt badly for them. It had been a long, hard-fought, hard-scrabble struggle for the soul of this country. But someone must win, and someone must walk away. I felt sad for the defeated McCain team. But I also knew that the best man had won.

Then the images of celebrations began to pop up on our screen. There were tens of thousands of people in Time Square, nearly a quarter of a million people, I have heard, in Grant Park, Illinois.
When Barack Obama and his family took the stage, I had a strange sensation of déja vu. Hadn’t I seen this movie once before? Oh, yes. Now I remember. This picture was superimposed upon a much older picture in my memory bank of a young, vibrant, charismatic man alongside his beautiful, elegant wife and their two sweet children. Of course. It was 1960, and the newly-elected John Kennedy was poised to take the reins of office. The whole country was in a celebratory mood. No one would have guessed a scant year earlier that a Roman Catholic could be elected president of the United States.

Once John Kennedy had been in office just long enough for the initial euphoria to wear off, he was subjected to the same kind of scrutiny all of his predecessors had experienced. His judgment was called into question. He was second-guessed. He was accused of nepotism for appointing his brother, Bobby, as attorney general. There were rumors of indiscretions with mysterious women. He had been brought up as part of the noblesse oblige, so how could he relate to the problems of ordinary citizens? His father had made his fortune running whiskey during prohibition. There were rumors of ties to the Mob.

Before long, we will begin to see all of the usual slings and arrows directed at our newly elected leader. Already, his choice of chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has been called into question. The choice was called “ironic” and some sniff that this is not in the spirit of change and bipartisanship. There are voices heard that criticize Obama’s campaign for the enormous amount of money spent in winning the election.

We must remember that, as Obama himself once quipped, he was not “born in a manger”. He is a human being, just like the rest of us. He loves his wife and his children. He mourns the passing of his grandmother. And he is smart enough to know that he doesn’t know everything, which is why he is assembling a crack team of experts to guide him through the rough waters of economic recession and simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wisely chose Joe Biden as his right-hand man, and his wife, Michelle, will be his closest adviser and confidante. But he’s going to need more, much more than that.

We, the American people, the people who fought so hard to make Mr. Obama our president, see in him the person we all aspire to be; calm, self-assured, courageous, intelligent, wise, caring, and committed to serving a greater purpose.

So the question now becomes, as John Kennedy so eloquently stated it, “. . .what we can do for our country”. Should we get involved in our local government? Volunteer at a homeless shelter or in a school? Become a mentor to an underprivileged child? Join the Sierra Club or contribute to a food pantry? Or simply wake up every day with the intention of being the best person we can be.

It won’t be easy for some of us. As my sister and I discussed the other day, those of us old enough to remember the Kennedys and Martin Luther King have had to numb ourselves to the pain of losing so many of our cherished leaders in the ’60s. We then had to live through many years in the wilderness under regimes that, more often than not, were insensitive to our concerns. So we are going to have to reawaken slowly to this new dawn, then figure out the most meaningful way to spend the rest of our lives.

I am saying a prayer every day for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and their families– that they be kept safe and healthy, and that they be blessed with the strength and wisdom they will need in these troubled times. And I am praying the exact same prayer for each and every one of us.