Sounding off on health care
Editor: With all due respect to Mike Nugent, it is a leap of logic to accuse President Obama of not understanding the health care system because while holding a town meeting he ballparked the price of a foot amputation at upwards of $30,000. Mike points out, and I’m assuming he is correct, that the actual Medicare reimbursement is “only” $12,565 for the hospital and $637 for the surgeon. What he doesn’t point out is what the hospital and surgeon charge Medicare recipients, the insured, and the uninsured for the same procedure.
I’m on Medicare. And grateful for it. I wish everyone could have the same coverage. But I need a secondary insurance, from my union, to take up the slack, and even then I sometimes have to pay the difference myself. Not complaining, I have friends who are 64 and hanging on desperately until they qualify for Medicare, a program Republicans fought tooth and nail to defeat.
The greater part of the op-ed piece, however, is not the math but an attempt to justify mob control of the debate. “Rude is not a crime,” he says. “An angry outburst…is sincere. You can learn from it if you listen” Huh? I wish he had gone into what one might learn from angry outbursts. Jerry Springer ethos?
The silent vigils of the left over the war in Iraq were called treasonous by the same people now claiming that the angry outbursts of the right are informative, the same people who bemoan how we will pay for medical care but didn’t seem to worry about how we would pay for the bogus war. The right makes a spectacle of the occasional Canadian who comes down here for medical care, but they ignore the Americans who are forced by medical economics to go to India and Thailand for treatment.
In the mid-sixties I was a social worker in Los Angeles. Whenever someone 65 or older was admitted to County General, I would be called to interview him, to investigate his finances and then wait until the point of destitution, at which time the county would step in and pay his hospital bills. So not only was the patient sick and financially ruined, he now had to face the humiliation of county aid. There came a day I saw one too many grown men cry, and I quit. This was around the time Reagan was scaring people into believing they would lose their freedom should Medicare pass. The opposite proved to be true.
“The frightened, loud, and rude have it right,” Mike says. “They should be afraid.” Some of them must be very afraid; they come to the President’s meetings heavily armed. What are they afraid of? Losing our status as the only industrialized country without universal health care? Losing our place at number 50 on the longevity list of the world’s countries? Losing our number 33 spot on the list for infant mortality, just above Croatia and well below Cuba? Fear not.
Darryl Ponicsan
Sonoma
Editor: I feel that Mike Nugent missed the main point of health care reform in his recent piece “Speak Truth to Power,” which is that thousands of Americans are facing a life-threatening illness and bankruptcy at the same time and we are all just one-step away from being in their shoes. The fact that President Obama was unable to quote the exact amount Medicare reimburses a doctor at Sonoma Valley Hospital for performing a foot amputation (not counting anesthesia, nursing care, bandages, etc.) is not relevant, but is a distraction from the serious problems with our present system of health care insurance.
To begin with, there is no logical reason that our health care coverage has to be tied to our employment. In fact, when someone is fighting a long-term illness, they are often unable to work and thus face losing coverage. I think that people from all political persuasions can agree that all Americans should have access to affordable health care that will provide these protections: those with pre-existing conditions can be covered, no dropping of coverage for the seriously ill, insurance must fully cover regular checkups and tests that help prevent illness, and guaranteed insurance renewal – insurance companies won’t be allowed to refuse renewal if someone becomes sick as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full.
I completely agree with citizens’ rights to speak their mind. However I am afraid that some sincere people are being manipulated by the insurance industry who wants to continue to make as much money as possible and by politicians who want to see Obama fail so that their own party can regain power.
This is despicable as we are talking about peoples’ lives. Right now, Americans like us are trying figure out how to pay the rent while undergoing chemotherapy. Please people, health care reform has been debated is this country since the 1940s, let’s unite today behind the great cause of health care for all!
Beth G. Hadley
Sonoma
Dreyer Dilema
Editor: Your readers may have been following the tragic story that left 21-year old Brad Dreyer in a coma after he was struck by a motorcycle while skateboarding. I read yesterday on a special Web page that charts his progress that his insurance is about to run out because the insurance company doesn’t feel he is progressing fast enough in his recovery. The Dryers have asked us to redouble our prayers for Bradley to get him over this hump, so that he can show some more improvement and so qualify for more care as per the insurance company’s requirements. I have intensified my prayers and I invite all residents of Sonoma to take a moment to do the same. The Dreyers are not average citizens. Jeff and Mary Kate adopted a barren area outside the Little Theater at the high school and with their own resources and labor transformed it into a beautiful park-like setting for students to enjoy. Mary Kate still heads up the Grad Night celebration at Sonoma Valley High School, even though her youngest, Bradley, graduated years ago.
But I will also be joining the walk of Sonoma Valley citizens in support of health care reform on Aug. 29 at 10 a.m. from the First Congregational Church to the Plaza. I recently lost a good friend because he couldn’t afford a liver transplant operation. The fact that for-profit insurance companies have the final say on so many of our vital health care decisions is appalling. They are currently conducting a manic campaign of lies, using the politicians and media personalities that their money has bought, to convince us that a public-option system would be worse than this cruel system that they have arranged for us. We have a chance at last to bring our country’s health care system up to what the rest of the developed world enjoys. Let’s remind our elected representatives that we voted for change, we expect it, and we deserve it.
Jim Kent
Sonoma