Last year I wrote an article on this blog about a hard working American who died for lack of adequate medical care. He died because he could not afford private health insurance, and he was unlucky enough to live in the only developed country in the world that does not provide universal health care to its citizens. Today, nine months later, the U.S. remains without health care reform of any kind, and 47,000 Americans continue to die every year because of that sorry fact.
I am reposting my article from last summer, not because it is extraordinary in any respect, but precisely because it is ordinary. It is what happens every day in this country, and it needs to stop.
June 15, 2009 — A good friend of mine has just written a children’s book about the experience of losing a parent. It’s a good book about an important topic. The book tells of how a terminally ill parent prepared his daughter for his inevitable departure. Though much of the little book is touching and beautiful, the story it tells is anything but a happy one.
Like the dad in my friend’s book, Jimmy Naylor was a father. He had a daughter who depended upon him and a wife who loved him. Jimmy Naylor had kidney failure, and it was bad.
To stay alive Jimmy needed regular renal dialysis, but he had no health insurance. The county hospital would provide dialysis sessions for Jimmy, but only after he reached a point at which his condition was critical. Then, and only then, could he be treated in the emergency room where dialysis would be ordered to stabilize his condition. It was a process he went through weekly.
Jimmy was sick all the time, unable to work, and unable to spend any meaningful time with his daughter. One day last year when he was quite sick he was taken to the emergency room, but he was turned away. It seems he wasn’t quite sick enough to earn time on the hospital dialysis machine.
Certain that Jimmy would be sick enough to qualify for treatment within twenty-four hours, emergency room personnel sent Jimmy home and told him to come back tomorrow when he would be sicker, sick enough to qualify for legally mandated emergency treatment.
Jimmy died later that night. He had gotten too sick too fast, and he died.
Jimmy’s case wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t unique. Jimmy was just another poor and uninsured American who died without treatment.
Did Jimmy deserve to die? Yeah, Jimmy made some mistakes in his life. You might even say that at times he had been irresponsible. But, did he deserve to die?
I’ve heard it said lately, almost to the point of nausea, that decisions lead to actions and actions have consequences. Certainly, Jimmy made some very poor decisions in his lifetime and acted upon those decisions. Like the decisions, the outcomes were poor.
Some of those decisions had financial consequences that made it difficult for Jimmy to afford health insurance. He opened a small business back in the late ‘90s without enough capital funding, the thing went broke and he took a real financial hit. He never really recovered from the loss. Still, he likely could have afforded some type of coverage with a very high deductible, but he had not purchased it. Another poor decision. Did he deserve to die?
A member of Jimmy’s immediate family told me after the funeral that Jimmy had received 16 dialysis treatments at the county hospital over the past several months. Taxpayers had picked up the tab for these treatments since Jimmy couldn’t pay.
Might we not have done better as taxpayers if we had simply killed Jimmy a year ago and saved all that money we spent on his dialysis treatments? I mean, he’s dead anyway, right?
If we had just killed him early on, maybe the county hospital could have afforded some newer and better dialysis machines for patients who do have insurance. Those people made better choices and should be rewarded! Isn’t that the popular argument?
Actually, you know what? Jimmy probably didn’t have to die after all, at least not when he did. If he’d made better choices he probably could have hung on for another couple of months.
He had an old car that was worth something, a few hundred bucks anyway, and all the stuff in his house would have probably brought a grand or better in a yard sale. If he’d sold all that stuff and sent his wife and daughter to live with relatives he probably could have paid for at least a few more dialysis treatments with his Social Security disability check. But, he chose to keep his family with him, so what could anyone do? He made his own choice, and he died.
Americans have some choices to make during this Congressional session. For example, will we insist that Congress create a healthcare system that would have saved Jimmy, or will we continue to choose to listen to those who think Jimmy deserved to die?
You know what? Nobody really thinks Jimmy deserved to die. It’s just that far too many don’t care that he did.
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Photo Credit: seiuhealthcare775nw.flickr.com
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Our elected officials are selling us out again. Already most of the “reformers” are backing away from a “public” healthcare policy option on the grounds that the government should not compete with the insurance companies. I thought that was the whole idea. I thought the point was to offer people coverage they could afford with real benefits of they get sick or are injured. I guess that for the politicians the point was just to get votes.
Don’t stop writing about this issue. For the first time EVER we have a CHANCE, but just a chance, to pass a healthcare bill that will provide coverage for all Americans. It isn’t going to be easy. The powerful interests of money, power and privilege are applying tremendous pressure to kill real reform. It is going to take the voices of millions of Americans to create the political pressure needed to force Congress to give us what we voted for in the last election.
If Congress cannot pass a comprehensive healthcare reform passage in this it is hard to imagine when it will.
Please keep this issue in front of your blog readers and encourage them to speak out to their representatives and senators.
I’m afraid that the American people are going to be screwed again by this Congress. They will pass something and call it health care reform, but it won’t be that. Unless we have a single-payer system we won’t really have health care reform.
In the media everyone is talking about the growing opposition in Congress to a government offered health care plan because it would unfairly compete with private insurance companies. I’m completely in favor of unfairly competition with the insurance companies. We should just put them out of the health care business. These people have been profiting obscenely from sick Americans while limiting benefits for decades. It’s time for this to stop.
The only way things will change is if we have a single-payer system.
If we don’t pressure Congress right now we are going to lose any chance of getting universal health coverage. Call your representatives today and let them know that nothing short of universal coverage is acceptable. If we don’t do this now it may be a very long time before we have another chance.