Since Congressman Grayson spoke his now famous words comparing the loss of life in the healthcare crises to a holocaust I have heard many on both the left and right denounce his choice of words. But I wonder, is it not a holocaust? Can it be in the most true sense of the word A Holocaust, An Offering?
I admit I had to google the meaning to be sure. I grew up in L.A. in a mixed race neighborhood and always had Jewish friends and I always believed that holocaust meant the genocide against Jewish Europeans. Later on I picked up that it meant a religious offering and when I studied catholicism and read the bible I understood the original meaning a little better. A sacrifice, an offering. I learned something else in my catholic studies. We were taught to offer our sufferings up to god. To make our sufferings a gift to Jesus who suffered so much on our behalf.
Maybe it can be a holocaust. But what are we sacrificing and to whom?
Another day has gone by since Congressman Grayson spoke of Holocaust. Another hundred or so have died in the healthcare crises. Detroit and Los Angeles cannot afford to bury their dead. How many of these unburied dead died because of the healthcare crises? How many of them remain unclaimed and unburied because their families have already gone bankrupt trying to keep them alive and now cannot even afford to claim the body? How many will join them today? How many tomorrow?
If you have read my past diaries you know that I partially blame a lack of health care for being on disability today. I worry about how many more will join me while we wait for health care reform. It is painful to think of what I know people are suffering without adequate healthcare. I can give a personal example. Normally, an insured person gets a kidney infection and they might get pretty sick and end up going to the doctors for antibiotics. When I got a kidney infection I had no choice. If I had the money or could borrow the money I could send my partner to a per store to get some fishtank antibiotics. Of course you have to guestimate the dose. Sometimes it worked and I got better with just a few days of pain and vomiting. If it did not work or if I could not get the fishtank antibiotics I just got sicker and sicker. Eventually the vomiting tore my stomach and esophogus. Then I began to throw up blood. I also had uncontrollable diarhea, terrible, terrible pain. I have a little ptsd symptoms from it. I end up going to the emergency room when I cannot stand it any more. Several times they sent me home telling me I just had the flu. I ended back in the ER every time. I think they were hoping I would get better on my own since I did not have insurance and they knew I could never pay. I typically spend 3-6 days in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics. This has happened at least half a dozen times. I am now on Medicare.
when I studied catholicism I was taught to offer my sufferings up to god and Jesus. I would offer my sufferings up. anything I went through would be alright. Any of the losses and deaths and pains suffered in the healthcare crises would be okay. If only...
If only it did not happen to you. If only we could stop it and get healthcare to all the people of our nation. I have healthcare and it is not about me anymore. It is about you, your family, your community, your country.
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The only real problem I have with this offering is not knowing who it is being offered to. It seems that all the people who are against healthcare reform really would like to keep paying the salary of the person at the insurance agency who will get a bonus for denying them treatment. Is it worth it to them to play the health insurance lottery and take a chance of being left for dead as long as there is the certainty that goes along with it that poor people or minorities are definately screwed? That's what it feels like to me. I hope to god I am wrong. and can someone please tell me where the evil is in our nation deciding as a people we will take care of our own? Will someone get rightwinger to explain in language that makes sense why it would be better as an individual to spend 30% of your healthcare dollars on the insurance agency than to spend it on getting healthcare to our fellow americans?
And what about the people who work at the insurance agency? Do they actively think. "I'll cover this guys hemeroids since they are cheap but this kid with cancer has to go if I am gonna take that trip to taladega next season."? How do you live with yourself when you make those kinds of decisions for a living?
People are dying in the healthcare crises and people are suffering in the healthcare crises and people are going bankrupt and ending up homeless in the healthcare crises and why? If there is any sacrifice going on it is not a willing sacrifice being made by the victims. Noone is choosing to suffer so that others might live here. If there is any sacrifice going on it is to a god of greed. How many americans have sacrificed their health, their prosperity, their lives to this god of greed? None were willing sacrifices! NONE!
How long will we allow this to go on America? How many of our people do we sacrifice to greed before it is enough?
The only way to make all the suffering right to make all the deaths right is to use the pain of all this loss to bring about real healthcare reform and end the unwilling sacrifice of american lives to greed.