UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Exercise freaks... are the ones putting stress on the health care system."

-Rush Limbaugh, June 12, 2009

I was a sickly child. It all started when I was born 3 weeks premature (at 8 pounds, mind you! I was fat even then), breathed some amniotic fluid into my lungs, and was put in an incubator for a couple of weeks. I almost didn’t make it. At 2, I had my first asthma attack in conjunction with the croup (I was apparently the first recorded case of this particular double whammy at the Montreal Children’s Hospital).  I was in an oxygen tent for 2 weeks. I almost didn’t make it.  In 1978, when the whole family was in Ireland, I had an asthma attack so severe that I was given a shot of cortisone, which naturally cleared it right up.  1980 was an astoundingly bad year, having had at least 5 severe asthma attacks, double pneumonia (for which I was hospitalized for 2 weeks), a gash in my left knee that required 11 stitches, and a broken arm. I had just started taking piano lessons, and I refused to stop playing. So a week after the initial break, a routine x-ray found my arm was healing badly, so my arm had to be rebroken and reset, which required putting me under and an overnight stay in the hospital. I was at the Children’s so often, the nurses knew us all by name.  During my high school years, I broke 4 fingers, had several more asthma attacks, had Mono twice, and developed a case of severe bursitis in my right elbow that took 3 weeks and 4 doctors to diagnose. It’s a wonder I’m still here. However, since I turned 18, I have been either very healthy or very lucky (Kenohorah tsu tsu tsu!), and aside from a few minor cuts and bruises (including a metatarsal sprain when a car ran over my foot and I fell backwards onto my hand), I’ve been able to steer relatively clear of hospitals. Absolutely all of the care that I received (aside from the medication) was 100% free.

Having a healthy society means having a productive society. If someone doesn’t have to worry about going to emergency without wondering if they’ll be able to eat for the next month, then we’re all better off. Someone with a nagging cough might refrain from going to get it checked out because they can’t afford it, only to discover 6 months later that they have lung cancer. Treating that lung cancer might bankrupt them. People with chronic and pre-existing conditions might forgo their medications that month, because otherwise, rent won’t get paid. I have many friends who work for small companies or who are self-employed who don’t receive health care as part of their work, and who can’t afford to pay the tremendously high costs for private insurance. In a nutshell, many of the arguments against US health care reform state that people who are less well off shouldn’t be sponging off of those who are financially more secure. Fair enough. But what about people like my parents: Solid tax-paying middle class people who worked hard and selflessly for their children. I would venture a guess and say they could have afforded health care insurance. But that would have meant no vacations, no piano lessons, no cello lessons and horseback riding camp for my sister, no occasional meals out at the Pique-Assiette. As it was, we never had a lot growing up.  We weren’t sponging off society. But it is a very real possibility that if we had lived in the United States, I might have died. More than once.

Health care is a right, not a privilege. I think it is a travesty that most hospitals in the US are run for profit. When you have a society that is able to medically take care of its less fortunate members, then everyone benefits; Fewer days of work missed means happier employees which in turn means higher productivity. Almost every industrialized nation in the world believes this.  And now, in an historic vote, the US has passed a Health Care reform bill. It’s not perfect by any means, and there’s still a long way to go. But it’s a good first step. 

P.S.  Rush Limbaugh promised to move to Costa Rica if the Health Care bill passed (Costa Rica, BTW, has universal health care). Let's help him remember.

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