I met Keith Hitchcock in Little Rock, Arkansas last week.
Keith is an uninsured American who also happens to be an amputee.
God help you if you happen to be a citizen of the richest country on the planet, don't have insurance and need a prosthesis. Keith needs a leg. But listen to what Keith has to say about what happens to an uninsured American who happens to be an amputee and needs a prosthesis.
So what may happen to Keith?
Well, during these grim economic times, it's damn near impossible to get a job if you're lucky enough to have four working limbs. I'd wager that it's basically fully impossible to get a job if you're sitting in a wheelchair.
Keith may end up collecting payments from the government, yeah welfare, all because in the United States of America, healthcare is a privilege not a right.
Listen to what Dr. Kimberly Garner the medical director of the free health clinic had to say about the demographics of the patients coming to the event last week.
In Dr, Garner's own words, "these people are our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers . . .this is our middle class, our average Arkansan.
As a patient is removed by paramedics to a waiting ambulance, the clearly upset Medical Director of the Little Rock Free Health Clinic Dr. Kimberly Garner, describes the composition of the patients attending the November 21st, 2009 event. "This is our middle class, our average Arkansan. Our neighbors, our friends, our families, our co-workers who we’re seeing here."
As I often say, there but for the grace of God go all of us. I know that my own health insurance, is basically worthless. It has become so expensive that I am deep, deep into the land of the dangerously underinsured. My situation is no different than that of most insured Americans.
And this is what Blanche Lincoln has to say to the people she represents.
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