If The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, I have no doubt one of the top items on his agenda would be the present day sorry state of American health care. It might even be the top priority, in that health care is one of the things that affects all Americans, but most especially the poor and dispossessed. Expenses, whether out of pocket or by way of health insurance, have risen to astronomical levels, and the quality of health care, at least for the poor, seems to be dropping exponentially. Today, a condition or operation that might have mandated a stay of two, three, or more days in the hospital have now become nearly a drive-through procedure, not due to increased efficiency of technological procedures, but due to the demands of a dictatorial HMO culture which dictate the type of care and duration of treatment a patient may receive, regardless of physician recommendations.
Now, Corretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's widow, is dead at the age of 78. She lies now in state at the Georgia State Capitol Rotunda, an honor that King himself was denied at his own death. Indeed, the widow King was the beneficiary of a legacy of respect and admiration, as she carried on his work to the best of his ability. About the only thing she evidently never received was decent health care.
A great deal of this may have been of her own doing, to be sure. She was the kind of woman who insisted on self sufficiency, to the point she refused to allow, in a later appearrance, a trusted family friend and confidante to aid her in walking down the steps, though she was in pain and in obvious need of assistance. Yet, she made it the distance on her own power.
One wonders if she could have received assistance in regards to her medical condition, an advanced case of ovarian cancer, but refused to seek it out. She would not be the type of person to seek help for her own needs when the needs of the poor were yet to be fulfilled.
Whatever the case, she ended up seeking medical help at a remote alternative health resort, more of a spa, in Mexico, where she died. Possibly, she sought out the care and comfort offerred there at a price which enabled her to continue to meet her other obligations. Unfortunately, while this may have brought her a degree of hope and contentment otherwise unavailiable to her, it may have also cost her her life. As it turns out, the spa in question was not licensed for the kind of medical care she received there, and the Mexican governemnt has shut down the facility.
The widow of the greatest civil rights leader possibly of all time, dead, due conceivably, at least in part, to lack of proper health care. Indeed, an irony that should focus more attention on the need to devote more resources into making quality and affordable health care a right for all mankind. A civil right.
3 comments:
Well, in making my point I see that, going over this, I went overboard somewhat. In fact, I'll go so far as to say I went WAAAYYYYY overboard in asserting the need to make medical care a constitutional right "for all mankind", which is of course a ridiculous notion, and I apologize for my carelessness in that regard. However, I stand firm in my belief that quality and affordable health care is, or at least should be, a constitutional right for all AMERICANS.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Hard to have any of those three without access to affordable and quality health care. Back when the constitution was first written, there may not have been as great a gulf or dissconnect in health care between rich and poor. There was of course a great degree of difference, but nowhere near the extent there is today. This is due mainly to the extravagant costs of health care.
Yet, at the same time, it is more than just a matter of common decency and fairness. There are practical reasons. For example, a strong and healthy work force is vital to the overall well being not only of our society, but of our economy. A healhy workforce is vital to that, yet to many in the work force, it is simply not an afforsable option.
Uuuhhh, well, okay, but in that case, the next time you go to the doctor be sure and have him see to that bullet you just shot into your foot.
Don't feel bad, I think a bunch of us have problems with the IRS-and Canada, for that matter. As for privacy rights, there's a grey area there, for sure. In public settings, you have no right to privacy, for example, but in your own home you certainly do, unless it can be demonstrated that there is reason to believe you are doing something illegal in the privacy of your home. It all comes down to property rights, in a way, and what could be considered more your own private property than your own person, your body. Like I said, a lot of grey area there.
Sorry if I came across as a smart ass, by the way, but I could never resist a good one-liner.
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