Barbara Rylko-Bauer, Ph.D. responds to Thomas Scully's remarks that reform is not going to happen now:
(<http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/uploaded_files/BushAdmn.pdf>http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/uploaded_files/BushAdmn.pdf)
"Mr. Scully is the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. And when one reads his remarks on the above cited website, he sounds like a caring and concerned man who truly wants to see the various problems plaguing U.S health care addressed properly.
"BUT, I wonder if Mr. Scully would be so glib about the length of time it may take to 'fix' the problems of the elderly, the poor, and the uninsured if he were one of them. With all due respect and honor and sensitivity to the tragic events of September 11th and the aftermath, it did not take us 10 years, or 25 years to get around to responding to the threat and the attack upon our soil and our citizens and residents. The will was there. Miraculously, so was the money.
"What Mr. Scully, and others in this Administration need to do is to simply be honest with the American public. Just admit that the people who have to suffer the consequences of no insurance, no access to care, or have to go without needed drugs because of lack of money to pay for them, these are people who are easily erased from our national consciousness. The above-cited remarks loudly imply that one can ignore these people, MANY OF THEM CHILDREN, with impunity; one can ignore them with little political consequence...after all, they don't donate thousands of dollars to campaign coffers, they don't have lobbyists fighting for their cause with money, favors, and patronization.
"But in actuality, we ignore them at great peril to our country and its future. In the process of dismissing the plight of 42 million uninsured, of stating that maybe we can try 'knocking that down in 10 years' - down to what, one may ask? - we are institutionalizing a morally outrageous type of dehumanization. Social and economic rights....the right to decent housing, to a basic education, the right to NOT be hungry, and yes, the right to basic health care...are not options ... these are necessities for survival. The right to survival is the most basic right of every human being born on this earth. And in the wealthiest country in the world, with the most sophisticated medical technology, and the highest expenditures on health and medical care...this should not even be an issue, it should be a given.
"The number, 40-some million uninsured, is the one that has been getting the most attention recently ... as well it should. But that is only part of the U.S. health care system-story. The number is even larger, as many as 55 million, when one counts those who lack health insurance for some part of the year. Another 50 million or so are said to be underinsured, many of them elderly people for whom Medicare only pays about half of medical expenses. All total, somewhere between 35% and 40% of the U.S. population has woefully inadequate or nonexistent financial access to health care. This constitutes a moral, ethical, political, economic, and social crisis for the country as a whole; and if it were 'fixed overnight,' that would not be soon enough!"
Barbara Rylko-Bauer, PhD
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