America; Heal Thy Self I

 First Part in a Series
The Rhetoric

“We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations.”  ~ Studs Terkel

“If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”  ~ Ebenezer Scrooge speaking of the poor. 

Countries with universal healthcare: Norway, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, Kuwait, Sweden, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Netherlands, Austria, UAE, Finland, Slovenia, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, South Korea, Iceland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Israel. 

 

Richie Batra’s comment was chilling, “if u want insurance buy it, if not pay Cash..if not, go Die..im not worried about anyone but myself and nobody should worry about me either(sic)."  Mr. Batra’s remark was a comment in a thread responding to an article last December in Think Progress covering then presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s Q & A with a group of high school students.

Santorum a man who wears his Christianity prominently on his sleeve was speaking in terms that the Jesus I’m familiar with would likely have disavowed.  “I had insurance under my employer. And when I decided to run for president, I left my job, I lost my insurance, I had to go out and buy insurance on the open market. We have a child who has a preexisting condition and we went out and we said, we like this plan…we have to pay more because she has a preexisting condition. Well, we should pay more. She’s going to be very expensive to the insurance company and,you know, that cost is passed along to us…I’m okay with that”. 

He also compared health maintenance to car maintenance by advising that patients should pay for routine visits out of pocket and use insurance only for catastrophic illnesses, thus saving money on premiums. “You turn in every claim,” said Santorum, “you turn in your oil change, you turn in your tires, you turn in filling up your gas tank, everything is turned in to insurance and then people wonder why,‘oh my insurance rates are going up?” 

Santorum’s remarks came on the heels of a statement by another, then presidential candidate, Rick Perry who suggested last November that everyone in America, whether insured or not, has access to medical care.  He was referring to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act which requires hospitals to treat people for emergency medical conditions regardless of immigration status or ability to pay. Rick Perry is another fellow who proudly proclaims his Christianity. 

Perry's comments echoed a similar statement made by fellow Texan and former President George W. Bush in 2007; “People have access to health care in America.  After all just go to an emergency room.” Bush is also, you guessed it, another self-avowed Christian. 

So why would I bring up a former President and two rusting wrecks from the demolition derby that is a presidential campaign?  Well, it seems that the last Republican still intact in that derby has been echoing the aforementioned gentlemen.  These men are all of the same school of thought.  Mitt Romney just recently stated on 60 Minutes, "We do provide care for people who don't have insurance, people — we — if someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care."

In a recent interview with the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, Romney offered, “We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack.’  “No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” 

The Dispatch article continued; “He pointed out that federal law requires hospitals to treat those without health insurance — although hospital officials frequently say that drives up health-care costs.”

And who could forget the Obama “death panels” and all the references to Nazi Germany.  Seems almost nostalgic now that it’s been three years since Sarah Palin (avowed Christian) and a number of conservatives, including Newt Gingrich (avowed Christian), Michelle Bachmann (avowed Christian), Michelle Malkin (avowed Christian), Thomas Sowell and Glenn Beck (avowed Christian) went off the hyperbolic ledge and warned that government “death panels” would decide whether certain of the elderly or the disabled would live or die under the Affordable Health Care Act. 

While the hysteria has died down some it didn’t stop Mitt Romney from dropping a thinly veiled death panel reference in the first presidential debate; “It puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people, ultimately, what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.”  The unelected board which Mr. Romney refers to is the Independent Payment Advisory Board, created to reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending and not make decisions to ration medical care. 

Clearly there is common thread here.  These are powerful people; policy makers, would be policy makers and people who influence public opinion.  And each and every one, in their statements recites a recipe; a mixture of equal parts disdain and denial, a pinch of fantasy, a pound each of malevolence and selfishness and thrown in for “good” measure a handful of phony Christianity.  Whip it all together in a frenzy and you have a distasteful helping of inhumanity.

They of course all stop short of Richie Batra who suggests that people simply die or Ebeneezer Scrooge’s suggestion of a decrease in the surplus population; that would after all be impolitic.  But one wonders what they think in the darkest reaches of their hearts.  No these people would never advocate for a system that would leave people to die for lack of health care.  Really?  Why wouldn’t they?  Because they're famous and we feel we know them?  People don't cruelly cut the weak and the poor like cattle from herd.  They don't?  Richie Batra would.    

In 2010, Mike Huckabee another staunch Christian was at least more forthright when he flatly came out against insuring people with preexisting conditions.  Said Huckabee at a Values Voters Summit; “It sounds so good, and it’s such a warm message to say we’re not gonna deny anyone from a preexisting condition.  Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you something from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle [to] our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, “I’d like to buy some insurance for my house.” He’d say, “Tell me about your house.” “Well sir, it burned down yesterday, but I’d like to insure it today.” And he’ll say “I’m sorry, but we can’t insure it after it’s already burned.” Well, no preexisting conditions.” 

“If u want insurance buy it, if not pay Cash..if not, go Die.”

“If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Makes one wonder about death panels doesn't it. 

To be continued....