By Claudia Chaufan
While “consumer-driven fire department” sounds decidedly weird, for some reason some have been brainwashed to believe that “consumer-driven health care” makes sense.
But it does not. It makes no more sense to let people’s house burn down because they cannot pay their fire-department fees — maybe they chose the wrong “plan”? or a plan with a deductible they cannot afford? – than to let them die because they cannot afford their health care.
Now, why the new federal law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act P-PACA), will fail to keep its two key promises (protecting patients and making health care affordable), is not the topic of this posting, because I and many others have commented on it extensively elsewhere.
Rather, it is to point out that if we continue turning health care more and and more into a “consumer good” that those who have the ear (and pockets) of Congress and the White House can make a profit off of (and P-PACA reinforces the trend ), we are up to extremely unpleasant experiences.
Such as, for instance, looking at our homes burn down while the Fire Department watches. And unfortunately, this nightmare is already with us. It happened just a few days ago, in Tennessee.
Here is how the episode is described in Amy Goodman’s show, Democracy Now:
Tenn. Fire Department Allows Home to Burn Down over Unpaid $75 Fee
In Tennessee, a local fire department refused to put out a house fire last week because the homeowner had forgotten to pay $75 for fire protection from a nearby town. The firefighters showed up to the scene of the fire and then watched as the home of Gene Cranick burned to the ground. Cranick’s neighbors had paid the $75 fee, so when the fire spread across the property line firefighters took action, but only to save the neighbor’s property.
The local mayor defended the actions of the firefighters. South Fulton Mayor David Crocker said, “Anybody that’s not in the city of South Fulton, it’s a service we offer. Either they accept it or they don’t.” On Monday, Gene Cranick appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Gene Cranick: “Everything that we possessed was lost in the fire. Even three dogs and a cat that belonged to my grandchildren was lost in it. And they could have been saved if they had been—they had put water on it. But they didn’t do it, so that’s just a loss.”
Keith Olbermann: “When you all called 911, as I understand it, you told the operator you’d pay whatever was necessary to have the firefighters come put out and prevent the fire from spreading to your house. What was their response?”
Cranick: “That we wasn’t on their list.”
Are we going to watch in disbelief while our homes burn down?
As Dr. Bill Skeen, executive direction of Physicians for a National Health Program-California, wrote:
Sadly, those of us who believe healthcare is a right know that this country has never assumed the mantle of providing healthcare to all its residents. Currently we leave 50 million of our brothers and sisters uninsured; 45,000 of them die each year because of it. It is time for us to stand up and demand that our nation return to the real American values of empathy and compassion and caring about our neighbors’ wellbeing.
Last night we as a nation let a family’s house burn to the ground while those who could save it watched and did nothing. Everyday we let more than a hundred people die who have no health insurance. Are we willing to standby and do nothing to stop it?
We don’t need to. And we mustn’t.
Let’s pick up the phone and call our U.S. Representatives today, and tell him or her to co-sponsoer HR676 when it is reintroduced next year in Congress. Tell him or her that you are outraged at what happened in Tennessee and that these two issues, fire protection and health care for all, are one and the same at their core. They demonstrate the incontrovertible need for government to protect the common good, and for we Americans to show our humanity to each other.
Let us demand Medicare for All – everybody in, nobody out!
Originally posted on Social Medicine.