Lucia

de Vernai

Read Lucia's bio and previous columns

August 12, 2009

Socialized Medicine Saved My Life

Socialized medicine saved my life. From chicken pox to orthodontic corrections, it always came through, even as medicine and funding shortages courtesy of the Cold War swept through Eastern Europe.

When I was a young girl in Poland, my parents, a pediatrician and an internist, never had to turn a patient away because a claim was denied. What works for other countries or doesn’t shouldn’t be so much our concern – no one shares our political structure, population size and demographic diversity – but the principles of national health care can be applied to, and work for, our unique American system.

There have been some astounding claims about national health care, some coming from the mouths of prominent public figures. When former Governor Sarah Palin suggested that her baby boy would be put to death because of his Down Syndrome, my nephew came to mind – born with Down Syndrome to a teenage mother. Although my family was lucky enough to have quality private health insurance, getting routine medical treatment came either through my stepdad’s crusade against the claims department or not at all.

Speech therapy, physical therapy and operations were all paid for by state insurance and state services. It is in the very interest of the state to have healthy, functioning constituents so that they too may contribute to the tax base. Private insurance thrives on keeping people sick enough to continually need to use their services. 

Private companies have the right to say that a disability like Down Syndrome are a pre-existing condition and deny the claims because they answer to a select group of people (shareholders) and the objective is to make money, not to create healthy, productive individuals. An elected government, on the other hand, is by definition obligated to strive for the well-being of its people. Why? Because it cannot drop you from citizenship because you were born disabled or had an accident at work.

A democratic government answers to its people, and providing for their welfare is the only way it can sustain itself. Millions of people have been turned away from getting necessary care because it was not in the interest of the insurance companies to help them. If a government did that, its “shareholders” would remove it from power for breach of contract.

For those of us lucky enough to be able to afford insurance, let’s not forget that we are at the mercy of the companies and even if we are paying (heavily) for it, there isn’t one insurance executive who loses sleep at night worrying that he will lose his position because he denied someone with a pre-existing condition life-saving treatment. Americans’ health is not his concern. The profits are.

Now a teenager, my nephew continually needs treatment. And he is not alone. Americans with disabilities are the third-largest majority in the country. They pay taxes, contribute to society and vote. Medicare and Medicaid are already socialized medicine programs unique to the American experience. Insurance companies are not interested in keeping 90-year-olds suffering from arthritis, ulcers and everything in between living on a meager Social Security check. Socialized medicine saves their lives.

It’s time the rest of us were given that option.

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