In one of the more truly thick-headed political ploys in recent memory (and let’s be honest, that’s saying something) the new GOP-dominated House is trying to repeal the Health Care Reform bill passed last year. They stand virtually zero chance of success, but they are going ahead. Afterward, they will seek to undermine the bill by taking out critical pieces of it in order to render it useless.
Leaving aside the utter moral and intellectual bankruptcy these actions imply, or the fact that they are doing this not because they think health care reform won’t work, but because they know it will. They oppose easy access to health care for all Americans is ideologically unacceptable to them.
For the record, I still favor universal single-payer or a public option as the best solution to our travesty of a health care system. The bill that was passed is very good but could be far better. In the years to come perhaps it will get better. California is trying to initiate their own reforms that hopefully will catch on nation-wide.
But let’s ta
lk about the unemployed or underemployed for a moment. If that’s you or someone you care about, chances are you are one of the 50 million (up from 45 million last year) without health insurance. That means that you might be one of 45,000 Americans who will die this year from treatable ailments because they could not afford medical care, or one of the over one million who went into bankruptcy last year over medical bills they couldn’t pay–and most of those people actually had health insurance.
Here is why this issue is so tremendously important: When you are unemployed or underemployed, lack of health care takes on special urgency. When times are hard, you learn how to improvise. If you can’t afford decent food, you can play the coupon game. You can grow a garden, share with friends, find deals or use any number of strategies before resorting to food stamps and other supplemental programs. Are you losing your house? It’s possible to downsize to something cheaper or “double up” by moving in with family or friends. Education? There’s the public library, the Internet, or local learning exchanges. Perfectly good clothing can be had at thrift shops or garage sales and likely as not given away or nearly so. There are nominal low-cost ways for dealing with a lot of basic needs on your own… except proper medical care.
That’s the one area where “they” have you by the throat. If you can’t deal with something using home care and over-the-counter drugs, or find sufficient help at a local free clinic and can’t pay for “real” care, you’re screwed. State and county services are hit-or-miss. You risk serious health consequences, even death partly because a business plan says that treating you isn’t profitable, but also because there aren’t any viable alternatives.
I think that some matters are best dealt with by the marketplace, but health care is clearly, provably, not one of them. If you are at the bottom of the economic food chain health care represents one of your most persistent and serious vulnerabilities. This is why I urge you to let your elected representatives know that if they try to do anything but improve health care for the American people then they will catch ten kinds of hell from you. Call them and tell them. Habitually.
