Online armor sales net prison, fine
By Steve Liewer
The San Diego Union-Tribune
February 23, 2006
A Vista woman was sentenced to prison yesterday for buying from Camp Pendleton Marines stolen body armor meant for Iraq-bound troops, then selling it to undercover agents posing as foreign arms dealers.
Erika Jardine, 47, was arrested in November 2004. Jardine pleaded guilty a year later in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to charges of violating the Arms Control Export Act and selling stolen U.S. property, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
During her sentencing hearing yesterday, Jardine tearfully apologized to the government and to U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson. Jardine said she sold the vests to make money to buy health insurance that her multiple jobs, including one as a licensed real estate agent, did not provide.
Jardine worked several full-and part-time jobs in the Vista area, according to a court document. She experienced financial distress after suffering health problems that included thyroid, ulcer and knee troubles.
“She was apparently badly in need of money,” Boyd said.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060223/
news_7m23kevlar.html
Comment: By Don McCanne, M.D.
The opponents of single-payer national health insurance frequently use isolated anecdotes to “prove” that a government insurance program would lead to impaired health outcomes and financial ruin. If they were on our side of the debate, organizations such as The Fraser Institute, Pacific Research Institute, and the National Center for Policy Analysis might use this anecdote to prove that national health insurance would reduce crime in the United States. At Physicians for a National Health Program, our positions are based on solid policy science rather than isolated anecdotes, so we would never go there on this one.
Although anecdotes do not establish policy science, they do serve another purpose. They can illustrate a specific example of principles already firmly established in the policy literature.
We know that millions of Americans with significant medical problems are facing financial hardship because of an inability to pay their out-of-pocket medical expenses. Many of them are desperate. There is no acceptable excuse for Ms. Jardine’s criminal acts, but we can acknowledge that the failure of our health insurance system either created or compounded her desperation.
A national health insurance program will not solve all of society’s problems, but it would dramatically reduce the desperation caused by mounting medical bills, and without any additional spending over our current levels. Ms. Jardine’s desperation “proves” that we need a single-payer national health insurance program.
I guess I did “go there,” but on the issue of desperation rather than crime reduction. Maybe it’s time for a study on personal medical debt and crime, beginning with the portion of the policy community that supports shifting health care costs to those who have greater health care needs. Now that’s a crime!