let's talk healthcare

Like many, I am getting to the age where things on my body (legs, arms... I think you get it... ) do not seem to work as well as they once did. This is a disturbing turn of events that makes me realize this is the flip side of getting up in years.

I’ve started to think about health care and health care statistics.

Last summer there was a loud ruckus around the health care issue, but given approximately 45,000 people die every year in this country due to a lack of health care, I think any move toward reform legislation was a significant leap forward. According to Harvard professor, Dr. David Himmelstein, more people die from this lack of coverage than drunk driving or homicides combined.

But let me bring it closer to home.

My father died from a lack of health coverage. He gave every one of his children the best he could, but did not give himself the same. When I was eighteen, my appendix burst and I was hospitalized for nearly a month. Much later I discovered my father paid every last cent he owed the hospital and surgeon for my really excellent care. He lacked the finances to provide his children with health insurance, but he worked to provide for our needs.

A similar study to the one recently published by the Harvard group found in 1993 that those individuals without insurance had a 25 percent greater risk of death. The Institute of Medicine later used that data in its 2002 estimate showing about 18,000 people a year died because they lacked coverage. Now we're up to roughly 45,000 dying prematurely due to a lack of insurance. 

My father was one of those statistics. And to those who argue that we should continue to accept the restrictions placed on basic health care by insurers, I say “enough.” I would have loved to have my father around for many more years than he was, and if he’d had even basic coverage, this probably would have been the case.

He once promised my niece he would be around to dance at her wedding.

He failed to live up to the promise.