By Dr. Rob Stone
Bloomington Herald Times
Guest Column
February 9, 2008
Recently I heard someone refer to those without health insurance as “losers.” It made my blood boil. The implication was that they had made poor choices and didn’t “deserve” health care.
Of the 47 million without health insurance in this country, about 18 percent are children. The majority of the uninsured work, many at more than one job, but either they work a job that doesn’t offer insurance, or if it is offered, they can’t afford it.
Many of them made the mistake of getting sick, and now that they have diabetes or cancer, they have a “pre-existing condition,” and cannot get coverage for any affordable price. Is it an American value to dismiss children, sick adults, and working people as “losers”?
A newly published study from Harvard in the American Journal of Public Health (Himmelstein, Woolhandler, et al, December issue) adds a new sad story to the picture — another bunch of losers — American veterans. Almost 2 million of the uninsured are veterans, along with almost 4 million of their family members, so that one in every eight uninsured is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household.
The number of uninsured vets is up 290,000 since 2000, and many are barred from VA care because of a 2003 Bush administration order that halted enrollment for most middle-income veterans.
Uninsured veterans have as much trouble getting medical care as other uninsured people; 26 percent of uninsured veterans reported that they had failed to get needed care due to costs; 31 percent had delayed care due to costs; 49 percent had not seen a doctor within the past year; and two-thirds failed to receive preventive care. And like the uninsured in general, nearly two-thirds of uninsured veterans are working.
“Since President Bush took office, the number of uninsured vets has skyrocketed, and he’s cut eligibility, barring hundreds of thousands of veterans from care. This administration has put troops in harm’s way overseas and abandoned them and their families once they got home,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, coauthor of the study and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. “We need a solution that works for veterans, their families, and all Americans — single payer national health insurance.”
I went into medicine to care for the sick. Everyone who is sick has lost something, and the health care system is supposed to help. Yes, we have winners and losers in America. Anthem and the other insurance companies are making record profits, so they look like winners. Wall Street loves them. But there are too many losers, like the millions of veterans and their family members who cannot get health care. Let’s not write off the uninsured as losers — let’s figure out how to make us all winners.
I work in the emergency room, and every day I take care of people who are afraid to come to a doctor because they know they can’t pay the bill, who fear the cost as much as they fear the diagnosis I may give them. They have lost something. Most have lost piece of mind. Many have lost dignity. Some have lost hope. It’s disgraceful that some would rather write them off as losers, and turn away.
It’s a matter of values. As Americans, we take care of each other. We take care of the young, the elderly, and the sick. We should take care of veterans. We should take care of everyone. Let’s work together to get health care for all.
This guest column was written by Rob Stone, a Bloomington physician.
