The Great Health Care Debacle

"A true disciple knows his brother's woes, as his own, as his own, as his own"
English Hymn


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Why I Blog

I contemplated starting a blog for a couple of months before it became a reality. I hemmed and I hawed. On one hand, I thought it would be a great way to share my views and opinions with the world. On the other hand, I wondered if I would be able to sustain the commitment of time and resolve that such an endeavor demanded. What pushed me over the edge of my indecision and catapulted me into the blogosphere? It was a singular experience.

When I bought the DVD of Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, I did so as a Johnny come lately. I had wanted to see it when it was initially released, but missed it somehow. Finally, almost two years later, I found myself in front of the T.V., mesmerized, shocked, and utterly demoralized. No film had that kind of emotional impact on me since Sophie's Choice. I was filled, paradoxically, with the type of frustrating emotion that leaves you paralyzed and unable to defer taking action for another second. At that moment, Blogomatic for the People was born.

Sicko: Unforgettable But True

This is my 7th post. Only now, do I feel ready to address the issue of health care in America. Since I have been inspired by Michael Moore's film and haunted by its images, it will serve as a framework for our discussion (Mike, I hope you don't mind). Think of this blog as a hybrid movie review/social commentary.

The Problem

Almost 50 million Americans don't have health insurance. That's roughly 1/6th of the population. The United States is the only first world, industrialized country, that does not provide universal health care for its citizens. This can only be regarded as a national disgrace. The rest of the population, those who do have some form of health insurance,are also in a precarious state. Coverage gives a sense of security. But it's illusory, a false sense of security. At any given time, the insured can become so catastrophically ill that their co-pays, deductibles, and exceeded benefit caps could easily cause their financial ruin.

The number one cause of bankruptcy and homelessness in America is due to excessive medical bills. Even more alarming, is the statistic given by Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren: "When we were studying the families who filed for bankruptcy, here is the finding that really blew me away: 75% of the families who ended up in bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem had health insurance at the onset of the illness or accident that ultimately landed them in bankruptcy. They had health insurance!" (This quote is taken directly from Michael Moore's interview with Elizabeth Warren featured in the supplementary footage of the Sicko DVD.)

These statistics evidence a broken health care system in the United States. However, statistics are really numerical abstractions that project human realities with faces, the faces of everyday people like ourselves, people who have suffered and died because of our gulag healthipelago. Sicko shares these stories with us: disenfranchised patients being "dumped" in front of public health facilities by "for profit" hospitals, the seriously ill being condemned to death because their insurance providers will not cover the necessary treatments required to save their lives, a baby dying after it was turned away from an emergency room because of her mother's inability to pay. Many of us could add our own story to it.

The Solution: Universal Health Care Now!

We need universal health care now! It is intolerable for 1/6th of our population to be uninsured. It is intolerable for those who have insurance to potentially face financial ruin if a catastrophic illness occurs. It is intolerable for us to allow big business to reign over our health care. Their bottom line is greed and they treat people like cattle.

Support H.R. 676!

Representative John Conyers of Michigan has proposed bill H.R.676. This bill provides universal health care for all the citizens of the United States of America. We must no longer except "sound bite" answers from our politicians which express some sort of abstract desire for health care reform. Instead, we must tell them. "You're right, we do need health care reform! You'll be happy to know that it has a name and is actually written out on paper. It's called H.R. 676."

Please write your representative and urge them to support H.R.676!

Epilogue

Empathy is one of the greatest character traits a person can possess. In turn, evil has been described as the absence of empathy. We feel empathy for the plight of our fellow man and hope our spiritual growth and maturity increases this impulse within us. This is the genius of Michael Moore's movie. It helps us to face the everyday woes of everyday people, just like ourselves. It increases our awareness, arouses our empathy, and ignites our compassion.


Congressman John Conyers of Michigan Leads the Fight to Pass H.R. 676

The Salt of the Earth

The events of this last weekend gave me cause to eulogize two great men. Both were very different in many ways and yet surprisingly similar. One man was famous throughout the world and the other known in the much smaller circle in which he practiced his art. The death of the former happened on Sunday, while the latter departed more than a decade ago. The two men, however, shared unique qualities of virtue and character that were immediately recognizable to the many lives they had touched. They were "the salt of the earth."


"This World Was Lucky to See Him Born."

I was invited to play in the 4th Billy Colias Memorial Chess Congress last weekend. Apprehensively, I accepted. It had been at least fifteen years since my last foray into competitive chess. Having made the transition from tournament player to chess coach/teacher many years ago, I was rusty to say the least. My tremendous respect for the organizer of the tournament and my great love for Billy made my participation a fait accompli.

Billy Colias was a Midwestern chess master of amazing ability, by far the most talented in the region. He loved the game with the passion of an artist who had no choice, but to create. And create he did! Steadily, constantly, assuredly, like a great tidal force, he became a stronger and stronger player. Undoubtedly, he would have ascended to the greatest of heights! But, it was not to be. The artist who devoted his life to the struggle of the chess board, was simultaneously fighting a great personal battle with cancer. Billy beat the cancer, but the chemotherapy left his internal organs in a very weak state. After years of battling with incredible courage, he finally succumbed at age twenty-seven.

Billy's considerable talent for the game, though impressive, was exceeded by his talent for living. Among the many virtues he possessed, his kindness impressed me the most. In the chess circles he frequented, Billy never equated a player's talent with their worth as an individual. He extended himself to the Grandmaster and Class E player, alike. His kindness was actually an extension of his humility. For Billy, self-importance based on one's chess prowess was a ridiculous proposition. Former World Champion, Emmanuel Lasker, aptly pointed out: "In life, we are all duffers." Billy Colias was the rare exception to that rule.


"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

When I arrived home from the tournament, I was shocked by the news of the death of another man who influenced my life greatly: Alexander Solzhenitsyn. To say the name is to immediately think of great literary talent. His books and ideas have changed the world, helped to topple an empire. As much an impact as they had on me, it was his icon of courage which inspired me the most.

As a young man, Solzhenitsyn embraced doctrinaire Marxism . He even read Das Kapital on his honeymoon! While serving as the Captain of an artillery battery on the Eastern Front in WWII, Solzhenitsyn's life would change forever. He dared to criticize Stalin in his private correspondence --being a committed Communist was not the same as being a committed Stalinist-- was arrested, and sentenced to the vast constellation of forced labor camps he would later make infamous through his writings. The years that followed changed Solzhenitsyn. He recognized the hypocrisy of the Soviet system and eventually embraced Christianity: "first comes the fight for survival, then the discovery of life, then God."

Solzhenitsyn's literary star rose with the ascendancy of Krushchev and his formal denunciation of Stalin. When One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich made its debut, Krushchev encouraged all the delegates at the plenary meeting of the Central Committee to read it! A few years later, Krushchev was removed from power and the succeeding hardliners did not have much use for the popular writer. Solzhenitsyn, however, refused to acquiesce. On November 30th, 1966,in front of an audience of five hundred people, he exhibited a moment of peerless courage when he openly defied the KGB:

There is a certain organization that has no obvious claim to tutelage over the arts, that you may think has no business at all supervising literature --but that does these things. This organization took away my novel and my archive...Even so, I said nothing, but went on working quietly. However, they then made use of excerpts from my papers, taken out of context, to launch a campaign of defamation against me...What can I do about it? Only defend myself! So here I am!

When The Gulag Archipelago was published in the West in 1973, this was too much for the Soviet authorities. Solzhenitsyn was exiled and eventually settled in Vermont. True to himself he criticized the excesses in Western Society with the same integrity he condemned the injustice's of his motherland. He triumphantly returned to Russia in 1994.

A Final Thought

I knew Billy Colias, shook hands with him, played chess with him, talked with him, and laughed with him. I never met Alexander Solzhenitsyn or was even in the same room with him. However, both men have affected me personally. I will always see their smiling faces and a gesture of their hands beckoning me forward, exhorting me to have courage in the face of adversity.