another voice for health care reform

Here's another voice from among the masses who are uninsured. I do not drink. I do not smoke. I am not on drugs. I am not homeless. I am not uneducated or stupid. In fact, I have a doctorate. But I cannot get work in my field right now because all of the colleges and universities are tightening their belts and putting on hiring freezes, and those that are hiring are so swamped with applicants that they have their pick from among those with more experience than I have (I am a recent grad). The job I did have was a short-term, part-time contractual adjunct lectureship that could not offer me health benefits because I wasn't full-time. I used to have health insurance when I was an undergrad. It cost me $80/paycheck for regular health coverage + eyes + teeth + prescriptions.

I did my graduate school work in Canada because the field I am in has a limited number of excellent universities with the resources and faculty I needed to have a top flight education. I lived in Toronto for seven years. While there, I had to purchase private insurance through the university that stood in lieu of -- and functioned just like -- the universal coverage all Canadians have. That coverage, including the supplemental insurance to cover eyes, teeth and prescriptions (just like here, they're not on the same plan as general health care), cost only $780/year.

Now look at that again. The SAME COVERAGE, THE SAME QUALITY OF CARE, FOR LESS THAN HALF THE AMOUNT. $80/paycheck x 52 weeks divided by two (for biweekly checks). It's pretty simple mathematics. That adds up to a whopping TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR.

Are there issues with the Canadian system? Sure. But let me tell you something, those of you who would prate on about waiting periods and so on. I had to deal with some of those waiting periods, and there were times when it wasn't particularly helpful. But guess what? In the US, general practitioners and certain specialists are in such short supply that it's often a matter of waiting here, too -- if you have the coverage to see a doctor at all. If I had an emergency, I was seen IMMEDIATELY. Even more "amusing" was the fact that while I was living there, a study was done by a medical group (I think it was the AMA but I can't remember for sure) that showed that cardiac patients in Canada had a higher survival rate...or more exactly, that if you have a heart attack in Canada, you're more likely to survive than if you're in the US.

And if you're going to try to trot out the old saw about how universal health care quashes innovation....who was it who figured out what caused SARS? Canada. Sweden has had universal health coverage for decades and they are at the forefront of medical advances.

If the words of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office aren't enough, consult other non-partisan third party sources. They say the same thing. There will be an initial outlay of monies, but over time, those costs will be offset. Ultimately the reform is budget neutral. And it is desperately needed, as imperfect as it may be.

I have a neuromuscular disease and must be on maintenance medications that cost me, out of pocket, more than $200/month. I'm supposed to get skin and kidney tests every six months. And I have it easy; a friend of mine has maintenance prescriptions that cost in excess of two grand per month. She has coverage....I do not. My brother has no coverage because he falls among the working poor also. He is medically bankrupt because of a series of happenstance events that required (1) hernia surgery, (2) surgery for a severely fractured ankle thanks to a slip on ice and (3) surgery to repair an accidental finger amputation during a work accident. My father had no health insurance most of his life because he owned his own business, but didn't make enough to pay the premiums for himself or his employees. He has prostate cancer that could have been treated and removed years ago, had he not had to wait until he was 65 and his Medicare kicked in.

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN. IT COSTS TOO MUCH, AND IT LEAVES TOO MANY PEOPLE UNINSURED AND OUT IN THE DARK. NO ONE should EVER go bankrupt because they could not pay their medical bills. NO ONE should EVER lose their house because they got cancer or needed surgery. NO ONE SHOULD EVER HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN FOOD AND THE MEDICINES THAT KEEP THEM ALIVE. But that is EXACTLY what people have to do every single day in this country under the present system. It is idiotic, antiquated and inhumane. It needs to be changed. The United States is the ONLY developed nation in which human beings every day go hungry because they have to get medicines for their children or themselves, or have to pass on desperately needed medical procedures because they cannot afford the cost. It's about time that this country, a nation that purports to be a world leader, actually stood the heck up and BECAME a world leader.

Learn from the mistakes other countries with universal care have made. Mold something that's uniquely American, something that will do what WE need, while taking the best and leaving the worst of the examples we can learn from others like Sweden or Canada. Having universal health care will NOT make the US a 'socialist' country in the horrific pejorative fashion so often bandied about by those who would inveigh against reform. It will simply make the United States what it should have been all along: a beacon from which other nations can once again take their own light and guidance.