March
2007
Owning the Plight of the Uninsured
It is a story that the papers run year after year. A working mother has her medical bills laid out on the table. They are overwhelming. She just doesn’t know what to do. She has to put food on the table, but the creditors are calling. Her only goal was to raise her two boys well and then she got diagnosed with cancer.
It is a compelling story and according various stats it is not uncommon. It is the plight of the under and uninsured. If you aren’t lucky enough to have healthcare coverage through your employer, then one major medical crisis and it could happen to you. You could be a great person, contributing to society, but at the moment you are between coverage and then bam, it hits you – a heart attack, a car accident, a weird disease that you have never heard of that puts you in the hospital for a week.
What do you do then? What should society do? If I have taken a position on anything in the “fixing healthcare” debate it is that we have to give the purchasing decisions and hence the responsibility for payment to the person that has the most interest in the outcome: the patient. Now that is not synonymous with “every man for himself” – if you get cancer then you have got to pay for your cancer. But (and here is the but…) if we as a society are going to decide to pay each others medical bills (or share each other’s risk), then we have to make a conscious decision to do so as a nation. We can’t just say “let’s fix the system” or “let’s make health insurance available to every American”. I honestly believe that won’t work.
The conversation needs to be about the common good or the benefit we all share from knowing it won’t be me that gets financially wiped out when misfortune strikes. In Catholic healthcare there is the concept of social justice, of the equitable distribution of medical resources, of providing for the most vulnerable in society. I think these are the concepts that should be at the forefront of our national discussion. I am not even proposing this because I am huge social justice advocate, I am proposing these topics, because these are the real decision we have to make about how we are going distribute our medical resources. With consensus around these issues, the money part of the conversation will work itself out.
Wow!
“the money part of the conversation will work itself out”
Talk about glossing over the issue.
The money part IS THE PROBLEM. You have suggested, as many others have, NO solution.
Lets say universal healthcare it is… cover everyone, but how much is covered? what is covered? These are the real questions that need to be addressed when talking about universal coverage because. We can achieve the institution of universal coverage without actually helping anything…
Also, how will a system such as this exist in a capitalist country?
Thanks for the comments, guys. No doubt that there are alot of details to work out. I certainly appreciate that the devil in in the details, but…we will never come to a consensus on the details if we haven’t agreed that universal coverage or expanding CHIP or subsidized coverage is what we want to pay for as a society.
Impressive article!! its great!! i liked it very much!! thanks
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