A few months ago, I got an email from Jeremy Helton asking if I was interested helping him get the word out about a project from the Recollective, telling real stories about patients abandoned by our profit-driven insurance system. The stories are intensely moving. Each vignette shows a still picture with voice-over—Jeremy spent hours with these folks to get the stories down to their essential meaning, and I think he did a marvelous job.
When I talked to some friends in Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) about the project, one concern was that the project focuses on patients at a faith-based clinic providing charity care. I’m sure you’ve heard conservatives say we can care for the uninsured easily with personal charity—we know that’s wrong because we’ve had thousands of years to try it without success. It would be a terrible injustice to suggest the solution is simply to establish practices like Jericho Road all across the country, mission accomplished.
What’s so wonderful to me about these stories is the honesty that we MUST have systemic reform to create true access to care. There is no suggestion that charity is fine without reliable insurance. At the same time, this practice is not waiting for our government to do the needed reforms. They are doing the best they can for their patients while advocating for change. They are setting an example for us of how to treat our fellow humans.
We are facing a similar problem in Alabama with Medicaid. If Alabama doesn’t do the expansion, we will abandon those most in need of relief. We are even in danger of defunding care for our currently covered children, disabled, and elderly in nursing homes if we don’t solve our 2013 budget trouble. I heard a PNHP member say recently that “liberals” support Medicaid expansion but “progressives” are in favor of single payer, because Medicaid perpetuates injustice and unequal access to care. Yes, but. I do not think we have the right, those of us not on Medicaid or hoping for it, to say this. The families I talk to who can’t get any kind of care unless they are in immediate danger of death do not agree. Of course they want full access to healthcare. Until that time, they would be grateful for temporary though imperfect relief, as long as we are also continuing to push for a truly just system.
Listen to this segment by Dr. Glick. He gets it. We need Medicare for All AND we need to see each other more compassionately. Confronting ourselves with faces and voices will keep us from thinking these uninsured persons are numbers, maybe numbers we can parse down until they don’t seem like much. The longer I watch our country struggle over healthcare reform, the more I believe we will never get what we need until we have a change of heart. A law alone won’t fix things. We must become the kind of people who will not compromise in healthcare justice, who believe it is not possible to serve our own self-interest and ignore the needs of our wider community, and who will do whatever it takes to make a national insurance system excellent instead of constantly trying to sabotage or repeal it.
Kudos to Dr. Glick, his staff and patients, and the Recollective team for bringing these stories to light! Please visit the site frequently as they post new stories, share them on your Facebook page, and help get the word out.
Thanks so much for spreading the word about Health & Justice Project. It is so easy to ignore those who are in need when we keep them silent. Hopefully, these stories are a step towards ending that silence. It sounds like there are some stories that need to be told in Alabama.
Thanks for sharing these stories and perspective. I agree with your perspective that medicaid is an imperfect system but is definitely preferable to having no health insurance at all. Lets hope that states like Alabama and Texas sign up for the medicaid expansion. If they do not do so we need to keep the pressure on those who make such a callous choice until they change their minds.
Your post reminds me of the quotation attributed to the great philosopher, Joseph Stalin: “One death is a tragedy. A thousand deaths is a statistic.”
It also reminds me of the debate during the later days before passage of the ACA: Should principled people support it, knowing of its terrible flaws, because in the end it will improve access to care for many? Or should the ACA have been opposed, in the belief that we needed to junk it and start over, beginning with extension of improved Medicare to cover everyone?
Thanks for sharing this site. I read recently of a man whose mother-in-law was Canadian and had breast cancer. His mother, American, also had breast cancer. He said they both got the same quality of care and he had no complaints. However, his mother besides having to deal with cancer and the treatments, also had to struggle with co-pays, deductibles, insurance auhorizations and medication cost. The experience made him a believer in the single payer system.
Not only is the state of Al. dealing with the possibility of Medicaid cuts but the devastation of the AllKids system, which is excellent right now and a life saver for the working poor. If you have any names and addresses for those concerned to write to, please post.