Getting aboard a health plan -- it's time to throw a lifeline to 60 million Americans

Getting aboard a health plan -- it's time to throw a lifeline to 60 million Americans
By Eric Zorn
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
Friday, August 14, 2009
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2009/08/getting-aboard-a-health-plan-its-time-to-throw-a-lifeline-to-60-million-americans.html

This the the print column version of my earlier blog entry, Either/oar -- the `rowboat' arguments

Me, I've been in the rowboat all my life.

Ever since birth I've floated confidently upon the sometimes roiling sea of medical catastrophe, knowing that a serious accident or illness probably wouldn't bankrupt my family, and that we'd get very good care at very good hospitals when we needed it.

And so far, so good. The rowboat provided to the Zorns by the private insurance-based U.S. health-care system is still basically shipshape. I'd never thought of my good fortune in nautical terms, however, until the other night when MSNBC host Keith Olbermann referred to "the old . . . 'I'm already in the rowboat you can swim' argument" in the raging national debate on health care.

Translation: I've got mine. And if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who've lost your coverage or can't afford a policy, well, that's not my problem, is it?

This certainly appears to be the view of those bellowing in fear and rage at town hall meetings coast to coast.

More measured skeptics, some of whom I've had the pleasure of conversing with online lately, tell me they're fine with the idea of providing coverage to everyone. But only if it costs them nothing and leaves them with all the advantages, priorities and prerogatives they currently enjoy. In other words, the old "I'd haul you up, but you might swamp my rowboat" argument.

Others tell me they view access to quality health care as something they've earned -- either by working hard or being related to someone who works hard. And if others want it, let them earn it too -- the old, "Go build your own rowboat, you slacker!" argument.

Still others say that those without coverage can always fall back on the patchwork of public hospitals, charity and Medicaid -- the old "You don't need a rowboat. Driftwood will do" argument.

Obviously, though, too many swimmers are drowning:

The National Association of Community Health Centers recently estimated that 60 million Americans are medically disenfranchised -- meaning uninsured or under-insured.

One symptom: The National Center for Health Statistics found that there's a dramatic gap in diagnostic testing between the insured and the uninsured (among women ages 40 to 64, 73 percent of those with insurance receive mammograms compared to just 33 percent of those without insurance).

Accordingly, 22,000 people died in 2006 because they lacked health insurance, according to research by the non-partisan Urban Institute.

And a Harvard University/Ohio University study published in June by the American Journal of Medicine concluded that 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were "attributable to medical problems." (Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, the American Journal of Medicine, June 2009)

The chief executive officer of Whole Foods Market Inc., John Mackey, argued in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday that Americans have no "intrinsic, ethical right to health care"; no fundamental claim to a seat in a rowboat.

I couldn't disagree more.

And not simply because my rowboat -- like yours, probably -- isn't guaranteed not to sink in a storm.

Basic, quality health care is a human right in the 21st Century, and providing it is the moral obligation of a civilized society.

We can, should and will debate how best to accomplish this.

But the new argument has to be "I'm already in the rowboat. Let me help you aboard."