THINK WE CAN .com

In this, the last in my series of four columns on U.S. health care reform, it seems a good idea to touch on our local situation.

My wife and I moved to Citrus County ten years ago.  I cannot think of a better place to have weathered the financial storm that has engulfed America for the past two years.  Yes, Citrus has more than its share of people who have been financially savaged.  But here, the unemployed and underemployed face their difficulties with quiet dignity as they struggle to dig out of their troubles and feed their families.

There is true nobility in this kind of behavior while under extreme duress.  I am reminded of a movie scene when Jeff Bridges, playing the part of an alien, stated that what impressed him most about us is that we are at our best when things are at their worst.

As we consider the suffering that surrounds us locally, as well as the rest of the nation, we debate the question of health care for all.  Should we, the most lavishly rich nation on earth, sit idly by as millions of U.S. children go to bed hungry every night, and then deny them health care when they become malnourished?

It is imperative that we add to our considerations the 1.3 trillion dollars a year that are stolen or wasted within our present health care system.  That figure--as unbelievably massive as it is—is confirmed by the most respected authorities in the field (see “Health Care Reform” here for references).  By recovering even a portion of those lost dollars, through comprehensive health care reform, we can provide coverage for every single American.

And yet, beyond all reason, many of our media personalities, news columnists and politicians deliver the same harsh and unyielding message over and over:  Health care is not a right because we must avoid socialism.

Maybe that is the question.  What do we owe our most vulnerable?  Think about it then--tonight, in the darkest hours, how many mothers and fathers will kneel by their small child’s bed and listen to a racking cough, or gently wipe a burning-hot, fevered brow, or watch their child’s eyes roll up into their head.  Now think about your child in that condition, with no health care available. 

And this is America, land of the free, the proud, the brave and the rich?

Over and over the self-styled experts on U.S. health care promote the same boorish dogmas:  They say people without health insurance or jobs have only themselves to blame; or everybody already has health care in America;  or, since the U.S. is the greatest, then nothing is broken, so why fix anything?  Some simply say we must stop our President from accomplishing anything.

Health care reform is our terribly urgent priority.  If we do not solve this problem, I fear for our future.  While being entertained by clueless media-warriors, how do we reconcile our religious moral stance when we know that every year thousands of Americans die unnecessarily from some God-forsaken illness or disease?  Will we continue to cower, paralyzed by fear of an unknown future brought on by health care reform?  What are we becoming?

Throughout recorded history, the rise of decadence in the ruling class of societies can be directly correlated to the demise of nations.  And we have a terrible problem with the royalty that controls U.S. health care.  To paraphrase the Honorable David Walker, then Comptroller General of the U.S., it is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan that we should fear, it is the cancer growing within our society that will bankrupt us.

We must find a way to transcend the disgusting, destructive politics that overwhelm common sense.  We need a platform upon which to stand and demonstrate that we are still capable of correcting the serious mistakes of our society.  It will take a collective, concerted effort to remove from our throats the clutching hands of some of the greediest people in the world.

There is no other platform so well suited as health care reform to help pull us back from the financial abyss.  We must not continue to deny the horror of what is being done to millions of our citizens.  Do we pretend to compassion when these people suffer needlessly by our 40 year failure to reform our health care Industry?

We can do this; recovering our stolen money will easily pay to do this; and when there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying, by all means we must do this. 

Health care reform is the seminal principle of the United States.