With the irrational scare of ebola, especially after a Texas hospital failure to treat an uninsured person, you would think that single payer healthcare would come to the forefront again. It hasn't.
The threat of a worldwide pandemic is always lurking in the shadows. So far we have gotten lucky. Not that the viruses out there aren't deadly, but that so far they haven't killed huge numbers of people. Of course what is relative to the word huge, depends greatly on our own point of view.
We do have procedures in place to look for ill people when things like Ebola takes place. Currently all people from west Africa are screened at airports for signs of illness. Most of the screenings do take place in Europe as there are no direct flights from Africa to the USA. Our biggest problem is with our healthcare system. If Duncan, the fellow from Africa had been treated correctly the first time, we wouldn't have had 2 nurses contract the disease.
In this country, if you don't have insurance, you will be turned away just like Duncan was. Thankfully Ebola is not that transmittable. If he had something like a virulent strain of the Swine flu, or if Avian flu becomes airborne and takes off, a great many more people would be infected due to those being airborne. You would be unrealistic if you think we can screen for everything.
Some diseases take a long time to show up from the point of exposure to the point where the disease becomes symptomatic. Depending on how virulent a strain is will depend on how many catch any particular disease. Chicken pox is one that is very virulent, but most people who catch it are not adversely affected by it. If a version of the 1918 flu comes about, I would expect about a 25% mortality rate which would quickly become large numbers of people dying due to the efficacy of transmission.
Then there are the things like drug resistant TB which is sweeping Russia right now. You can be a carrier and not have any symptoms for a long time, if ever. http://www.who.int/...
There is even a drug resistant MRSA which is no longer just caught in a hospital setting. One of my former co-workers nearly died from it and no one has any idea how he caught it since he hadn't been any where near any hospitals or clinics before it showed up. http://www.mayoclinic.org/...
If you have a relative die of something like the Entero virus, RSV, the Coronavirus, Ebola, AIDs or some other nasty bug, you will tend to think it's huge in terms of your own loss and heartache. 20,000 people dying every year from the common flu in the USA seems huge based on numbers alone- and it is, but it still pales in comparison to the people who will die due to a total lack of being able to afford healthcare, insurance, co-pays and prescriptions, estimated at 40,000-60,000 people every year. Not to mention all the people going through a medical bankruptcy every year. Even those with insurance.
http://www.cnbc.com/... The ACA doesn't change that.
WE NEED SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE or MEDICARE FOR ALL- at the very least, So everyone can be covered and to help keep an epidemic from becoming a pandemic.
The best way I can phrase this to possibly get movement on it on Capital Hill, would be to call it a Dire National Security Issue. After all, society as we know it would collapse under the threat of a deadly pandemic. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...
The people who can't get treated even for curable cancers is a national shame. I don't know anyone who can afford the multiple thousands of dollars per dose of chemotherapy drugs, if they had to pay it out of pocket. Not to mention all of the other care that is needed and associated with those treatments.
I saw an article on Truthout (see link below curlycue) in which a doctor describes how he was unable to help his first patient at a free clinic. Not because he didn't desire to help him, but because neither the patient nor the free clinic could afford the diagnostics and treatment for him. The only treatment he was given, was for an antacid. This was not really going to help him. The free clinic made the decision to send him to the ER due to his severe symptoms to no avail. He was sent to an ER only to be sent home.
He wound up back in the ER when the cancer got so bad as to have already metastasized to other organs. This is unacceptable in what is supposed to be one of the richest countries on the planet.
I have former neighbors who also couldn't afford to get help. I will change the names so as not to hurt innocent people.
One fellow who helped me to move out of my home and later out of an apt, was found dead in his apartment. He was only 45. He had gone to free clinic for an anxiety disorder along with some other health problems. He was given a prescription for Xanax, but he couldn't afford to fill it. He had been out of work and/or doing odd jobs for a long time. His heart gave out, likely due to an undiagnosed condition. Reason? No health insurance and no way to pay for any healthcare.
Another woman I know had worked for 22 years in a factory before it closed down and moved to Georgia. She and my aunt had both hoped to retire out of there. Kate was in her early 50's when her job went away. Since then she has been trying to find steady work but to no avail. She was able to get a couple janitorial jobs (10-15 hours a week) but it wasn't enough to live on much less pay for the healthcare she needs. Kate is a diabetic with other health issues for which there would be help if she had insurance and/or the ability to pay for the surgeries she needs. She has a prolapsed uterus which gives her problems. Since she is diabetic, she is more prone to infections and having a prolapsed uterus is just inviting infections. It could be repaired but only if you have the money and insurance. She also has a detached retina, which once again, if she had insurance, that could have been repaired. Instead she has gone blind in that eye.
Once again this is unacceptable in our society.
How do you think we need to approach the lack of care in this country for the people who need it most?
Then there is the very real problem of a possible pandemic hitting the world.
If you want to prevent a pandemic from overwhelming us, we should be working on a single payer healthcare plan and making 2 weeks of paid sick leave a mandatory part of any employment along with a month of mandatory paid vacation.
Too many of the working poor have no choice but to go to work while they are sick, which spreads disease. Think about that the next time you walk into a restaurant. Is the chef ill? Is the waitress, busboy, or hostess ill? They can't afford to take time off from work because they aren't making ends meet now.
Then there are the seniors who need long term care but can't afford it, and neither can their families.
I have a couple close relatives in this boat.
Two of them have dementia and care for them starts at $5000 a month just for a room. Everything else is extra. If you are like most seniors, and make less than $1200/month, you can't afford to go to a nursing home or Alzheimers care facility. Medicaid covers part of it if your income is low enough, but it doesn't cover everything.
This often leaves a surviving spouse destitute. Laws vary from state to state, but locally, where I live, there is a 5 year look back period on any assets that you may have had. So if you sold your home 4 years before you wind up in a care facility, Medicaid and the state you live in, want that money. Never mind that you may not have it anymore. Also they don't care if that was what you and your spouse have put aside to live on for the rest of your lives.
We, as a society need to do a better job of taking care of our most vulnerable citizens.
Even though the ACA is better than nothing, we need to do better. The high deductible plans are still too costly. I know far too many people, who have insurance, but still can't afford to go to a doctor. Often these plans entail a high premium along with the stipulation that it won't pay anything until you've reached the out of pocket maximums. These can be as little as $1500 and as high as $25,000 a year before insurance will kick in a dime towards any care you need. The ACA's promise of no more huge out of pocket maximums is largely false, especially if you had to pick a lower tier plan due to lack of income.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
The republican Ed Gillespie has a republican version of repeal and replace which would put more costs on citizens as well as require them to buy their own insurance on the open market instead of the exchanges. So according to Ed Gillespies' own proposal, for a 61 year old- instead of a $4822 insurance subsidy, instead you would get a $3000 dollar tax credit if you could actually buy insurance.
http://2017project.org/...
More below the curlycue
This doctors story made me think.
http://www.alternet.org/...
Quotes (source- http://askville.amazon.com/...)
Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.~Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), My Several Worlds [1954].
The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
~Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.~John E. E. Dalberg, Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Antiquity, [1877].
"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. " ~ Last Speech of Hubert H. Humphrey
"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." ~ Mahatma Ghandi
"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest."
~Cardinal Roger Mahony, In a 1998 letter, Creating a Culture of Life
The greatness of America is in how it treats its weakest members: the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the unborn. ~Bill Federer
"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying,"
~Pope John Paul II