By Donna Smith
Community organizer, California Nurses Association/NNOC
FROM One lowly cancer patient to some prominent others: I want my life to matter as much as yours.
CHICAGO -- As many in positions of power rush to put forward healthcare reform plans for the nation, I want to appeal to you -- two of the individuals whose voices will be raised as more meaningful due not only to their substantial political status and popularity (every reform group wants you on the team, don't they?) but also because you both are battling cancer. While I cannot claim a voice as important as yours, I can share the knowledge of what it means to fight cancer.
I spoke about the issue a bit following Senator Kennedy's diagnosis:
Watch Donna talk with Laura Flanders
And from this moment forward, I want both Sen. Ted Kennedy and the amazing Elizabeth Edwards to keep me and other "lowly" cancer patients in mind when they lend expert opinion and political weight to reform plans.
I'd like to offer a litmus test of sorts: If under any health reform plan either of you choose to support in the coming rush to act an average American is forced to think and react differently than you did when they hear the words "You have cancer" spoken out loud for the first time, then we cannot support such a plan. I first had to think about finances and deductibles and co-pays and missed work hours, and private insurance forces that on millions of cancer patients -- you must not support that sort of brutality and structural violence for our fellow cancer patients and such a plan must be rejected.
In fact, you do have a higher responsibility to act on behalf of those less fortunate simply by virtue of your power and status. I am appealing to you to remember those first moments after cancer diagnosis -- no, actually, I am begging you to do so.
You see, if we simply implement a plan that offers more private insurance coverage for more people, that doesn't answer the questions facing working-class cancer patients. Private insurance companies do not like cancer patients -- unless those cancer patients have inoperable or advanced cancers which will lead to death rather quickly. That's just reality.
And under most of the plans I've heard so far, access to health care is not what is being offered -- access to the purchase of health insurance is. And there is no regard for the fact that a wealthy person will be able to buy better insurance than a working-class person. None of the health-insurance based plans I am seeing right now do much if anything to speak to high deductibles, co-pays and other barriers to health care that must be broken down in any civilized program -- or even in any fiscally responsible one.
I can tell you from personal experience, having had cancer is the same to my medical record and any subsequent insurance underwriting process as having gone bankrupt is to my credit rating and future ability to obtain any sort of credit. Under the private health insurance model, I am seen as a "medical loss" or loss of profit in waiting. Even if you force insurance companies to cover me somehow and not to stop me from buying insurance due to pre-existing condition, you cannot force that same insurance company to approve cancer treatments anything like what you may get or another person with a better plan may get or even what my doctor may think is best. Money and my lack of clout and social/economic/political status will drive my options, not what is best to treat my cancer.
And both of you, Sen. Kennedy and Mrs. Edwards, have at various points in your lives, claimed to know what it means to live in working-class America. Now, please allow your experience as cancer patients to add to what I know must be your compassion at some level for those of us who live in a different place than you do -- even when we hear or maybe especially when we hear bad news. We don't have the luxuries you do to rest in the love and support of those around us without worry about money and work loss and benefits loss and the like.
To adopt a private-insurance based plan that included subsidies for families to buy plans that might abandon them at just the moment when they hear the worst news possible, is nothing more than a swift taxpayer bail-out to the insurance industry disguised as healthcare reform. And I know both of you, as my fellow cancer patients, know better than to leave that legacy to your kids and mine.
I support a publicly funded, privately delievered solution because it passes that litmus test. My cancer will be the same as yours. And my life will hold equal value in this nation's health delivery system. That's justice.
Watch out for plans from those who claim to know what's best while they take huge sums from private insurance as campaign contributions. Look at the Sen. Baucus plan, for example:http://www.nasdaq.com/...
Then check out why he loves the private interests more than he seeks to protect yours and mine (from opensecrets.gov):
Top Contributors
Senator Max Baucus 2003 - 2008
Election Cycle:
Total of itemized contribution records of $200 or more: $4,247,980. To search these 4590 contributions for this member, click here.
Contributor Total
Schering-Plough Corp $56,200
New York Life Insurance $52,900
DaVita Inc $50,650
Goldman Sachs $48,900
American International Group $46,750
Amgen Inc $45,750
Aetna Inc $45,250
UST Inc $42,950
Kohlberg, Kravis et al $42,400
American Express $39,800
Akin, Gump et al $38,836
JPMorgan Chase & Co $37,000
Citigroup Inc $36,500
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $35,850
Huntsman Corp $32,200
Paulson & Co $29,900
Morgan Stanley $29,500
Kindred Healthcare $28,400
Wyeth $28,170
Verizon Communications $28,001
Top Industries
Senator Max Baucus 2003 - 2008
Campaign Finance Cycle:
Industry Total
Securities & Investment $774,018
Lawyers/Law Firms $672,004
Insurance $573,335
Health Professionals $514,233
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $470,913
Real Estate $376,719
Health Services/HMOs $355,750
Lobbyists $342,975
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $325,625
Electric Utilities $283,340
Commercial Banks $197,880
Misc Finance $171,100
TV/Movies/Music $157,050
Computers/Internet $150,842
Business Services $149,988
Retail Sales $149,750
Retired $148,037
Democratic/Liberal $145,600
Beer, Wine & Liquor $141,871
Agricultural Services/Products $125,500