Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ) and the state of Arizona recently condemned 98 of its citizens to die.
Their crime?
Not having adequate funds for an organ transplant.
In order to balance their budget, the state of Arizona recently cut funding to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS, pronounced like access) which is Arizona’s equivalent to Medicaid.
AHCCCS was the only insurance that Mr. Randy Shepherd could afford because they could not deny him due to his pre-existing heart condition.
Mr. Shepherd contracted rheumatic fever as a child and had his heart valves replaced. In order to continue tossing baseballs in the backyard with his three year old son, Nathan, Mr. Shepherd needs a transplant.
The amount of money saved by the cuts? $4.5 million.
That’s right: the cost of your life in Arizona is $45,918.37, the average salary of a plumber working 40-hours per week for 52-weeks a year in the United States (Mr. Shepherd is a plumber).
Here is an interview with two of those men and their families:
Again… a recap from a blog entry back from March 2010:
What the health care bill comes down to are three key principles.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are LIFE, LIBERTY and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS." -Declaration of Independence, Adopted July 4, 1776
“This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” –President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, March 5, 1933
"Primum non nocere." -Latin, loosely connected to the promise of "To abstain from doing harm" in The Hippocratic Oath (text of the modern version)
I highlighted those three words because health care should be about LIFE. Not the so called "Death Panels" that Fox News Commentator Sarah Palin champions. When you go to the doctor, you are pursuing your own LIFE whether it is a simple as getting a flu shot; a colonoscopy to check for polyps; seeing a specialist to consider knee surgery due to a soccer injury; emergency gallbladder or breast reduction surgeries to alleviate pain; pursuing treatment for breast cancer; or having a C-section as a safe alternative to BOTH continue a current LIFE AND to bring a new LIFE into this world.
The LIBERTY to live your LIFE to the fullest extent without worrying about being denied coverage because of a "pre-existing condition" or if you face a medical condition, you won't end up going to the poor house because of it. We all have a "pre-existing condition:" It is called being human. We have to face our own mortality: we are going to die someday. We have made advances in medical treatment over the past two centuries to extend our time on earth to 75 years (conservative average). Let's try to make the best of it while we are here; and when it is time for us to go it should be a dignified exit.
This comes down to the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, which should allow its citizens to pursue a happy and high quality of life without the fear (from FDR’s speech) of being bankrupted by medical costs.
The current system in place violates health care provider's oath to help people. Overall that is the goal of a medical provider: to do good.
Yes, I agree that this is not the best bill. It is better than nothing. The health care debate was sadly dominated over the summer 2009 recess (believe me, I know…) with the claims from the extreme right wing elements and being backed by the health insurance companies that changing health care will lead us toward socialism. We already have socialism in this country. Some examples: Social Security, public works, and (my personal favorite) the Interstate Highway System.
Governor Brewer, Sharon Angle, Half-governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN 6), Representative-Elect Andy Harris (R-MD 1), etc…
What the state of Arizona has done, they conducted a death panel!
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