A Reflection on Health Care

I woke up Wednesday morning to my daughter's screams. She was shrieking from the pain in her side. She hadn't felt well for several days; by Wednesday, it could no longer be ignored. We sought aid from the hospital that bears the name of the denomination that I have served for 25 years, my father has served for 50 years, by uncle has served for 30 years, and my grandfather served for 54 years.
Sara was there for six hours. She was barely examined. She was, for the most part, ignored. Then, at 2:30 pm, with no explanation whatsoever for what was causing her pain (which had not subsided), the nurse came in with her discharge papers and wished us well. We asked to see the doctor. He came in with a thoroughly condescending smile on his face, and told us, graciously but pointedly, to get out.
You see, Sara is a sinner. Her sin? She has no health insurance.
My daughter works an average of 46 hours a week at a local restaurant, for $2.14 an hour plus tips (and if you eat at restaurants and don't tip the waitstaff, your tongue should fall out). Those fine folks terminated her health insurance last fall when Sara was eight months' pregnant. They said she wasn't working enough hours to qualify for insurance. Which was interesting, given that they made out her schedule each week. My guess? Someone was ordered to cut costs, so they did.
Another family in our church has incurred an incredible amount of medical neglect. That neglect has caused significant damage. One of the doctors in that instance dropped a tirade on his patient, screaming at her that if she had better insurance, she'd have gotten better care!
Other families in our church have lost their insurance when the business closed. There are few scarier places in life than finding yourself unemployed and uninsured when you are several years away from qualifying for Medicare, or have young children, or you or your spouse already have health issues.
Shannon and I do not use the Annual Conference insurance program. The Conference program penalized us in ways we cannot afford for Shannon using brand name insulin rather than generic insulin. When there is no such thing on God's green earth as generic insulin. Fortunately, we have access to her collectively bargained program, that of the Mississippi teachers' union. But as good as it is, we can't put Sara on it, as she is 23 and not in school.
In Sara's case, we are fortunate. My father is still somebody within our little world. So this morning, he was able to call on a friend and former church member of his to get Sara examined, diagnosed and treated. She has a respiratory infection that, left untreated, could have gone into pneumonia and killed her. But she's going to be alright, because Dad knows somebody.
How many people don't know somebody?
How many people are being left to suffer and die because they are inunsured, and, therefore, in the eyes of far too many medical professionals, untreatable?
How many people are suffering needlessly, and becoming sicker than they should have to, because they don't even seek medical care, knowing they are uninsured and can't pay?
How much more expensive is it for all of us for the poor and indigent to show up at The Med when they are at death's door, bur never should have gotten so sick in the first place?
How much of the exorbitant premiums that we all pay are due to the expenses of those uninsured, whose "care" has to be covered somehow?
How long will the greatest and wealthiest nation in the world allow tens of millions of its people to suffer misery, physically and emotionally, over health care?
Do those who wring their hands over the prospect of "Death Panels" run by the government (which do not exist in any of the plans being considered) not understand that the insurance companies are, by their refusal or approval of procedures or tests that doctors deem necessary, acting precisely as the kinds of boards that they fear?
I don't know what the answer is. I wish I did. I just know that there has to be something better than the way we are (barely) functioning now.
Again, Sara will be alright. I'm thankful for that. But as we consider our church family, our community and nation, there are an awful lot of people who cannot say tonight that their loved one will be alright.
Because they don't know.
Because they cannot afford to see the doctor.
And may God have mercy on all our souls if we continue to accept this perverse and unjust system with our silence, selfishness and inaction.
With prayers for God's just future to come speedily,
+Bro. Joe
(from the September edition of our church newsletter)