Medical Economics
November 5, 2004
Memo from the Staff
A crisis too loud to ignore
By Robert Lowes
I began writing this in a hotel bathroom in San Francisco. Only there could I escape the racket of a picket line 20 floors below and hear myself think: Maybe doctors shouldn’t view national health insurance as a dirty idea. I had a window on this war from my room at the Renaissance Parc 55. Its workers weren’t striking, but I could see picketers across the street at the Hilton. Some carried signs reading “Healthcare is a Right” while others drummed buckets, blew whistles, and chanted from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., the limits set for noise-making. A renegade drummer woke me up at 2 a.m.
Earplugs courtesy of the hotel were useless. The din was unnerving but understandable. A proposed contract would increase a worker’s health in-insurance premium from $10 a month, an unbelievably low amount, to $273.42 a month in five years, an unbelievably high amount. That’s more than my premium, and I make more than they do.
Nationwide, millions of laid-off workers have lost insurance coverage. Millions more who’ve kept their jobs find it costlier. So what’s the systemic solution? “We don’t have national health insurance,” said Tim Miller, a waiter turned picket captain. “Shame on America.”
Maybe national health insurance strikes you as socialized medicine. But our society must replace the current system with something that’s fairer and more compassionate. I was heartened by the report of a surgeon who grabbed a
sign and joined the hotel strikers. If anybody has the moral authority to provide leadership on this issue, it’s the healing profession.
The presidential election is over, but the crisis remains. Whatever we do, we can’t succumb to the temptation to stick in earplugs. Otherwise, the drumming will only get louder.
http://www.memag.com/memag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=130910
Comment: The message is familiar. What is notable is the source: Medical
Economics. The rationale of national health insurance has not escaped anyone. The anti-government ideologues are becoming more shrill in their response.
But the good news is that concerned individuals of sound mind across the political spectrum now agree that we must have comprehensive reform. And they realize that options other than national health insurance do fall short of our goal of affordable, comprehensive coverage for everyone.
The drumming is growing ever louder.