Guaranteed Healthcare

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist CNA/NNOC 

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, Communications Specialist, CNA/NNOC

CHICAGO -- If we had a healthcare lifeboat within our sinking system, Patrick Murfin of Crystal Lake, IL, is pretty sure there’s no room on board for him.  I recently attended a hearing in McHenry, IL, on the Illinois state single payer bill, and when I heard Patrick testify, I felt sad and angry for him.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist, CNA/NNOC

CHICAGO --  Last week, Americans gathered all around the country to protest the for-profit, health insurance industry which has turned our healthcare system into their own little playground of greed and graft.  In San Francisco, thousands gathered.  In other cities, hundreds, and in still more, scores of people cared enough to stand up and speak out for healthcare justice.

I am home in Chicago now.  And I am reflecting on an incredible week for the single payer healthcare movement. One incident at the close of the San Francisco protest event will be etched in my mind and others' minds who saw it for a very long time.

I walked slowly along one shaded wall at the Moscone Center in San Francisco with a few of our nurses -- we were all pretty hot but very happy to have been a part of this protest. We sipped water and waited patiently as the crowd broke up.

We noticed a tiny, elderly woman who was hunched over, carrying her protest sign and shuffling quietly along the windows of the Moscone Center.  Inside the convention center, some of the insurance company groupies were sitting in the air-conditioned lobby, sipping sodas and other cool drinks and watching the protest break up outside.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist for CNA/NNOC 

It takes courage to stand up to the people who make money off the suffering of others when those same people bring loads of money and influence to every table they buy.

But there still are some courageous Americans -- and even some courageous Americans who are also elected officials.  Today in protest actions across the United States, citizens will stand side-by-side with some of those brave warriors of the people as we protest the private health insurance industry and its stranglehold on the American healthcare system.

From San Francisco to Louisville and from Philadelphia to San Antonio and in a dozen other cities, patients, nurses, doctors, activists, writers, lawyers, students, senior citizens, veterans, and politicians with guts will gather in solidarity against the inhumanity that places profits above human life and masquerades itself as protection against calamity -- and that imposter is the private health insurance industry. 

A city attorney from Los Angeles, a mayor from San Francisco, a state senator from Pittsburgh, a state representative from Chicago and other amazing truth-telling public officials stand unafraid to proclaim:  healthcare is a basic human right.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist CNA/NNOC

What a great night of political speeches.  And it was wonderful to hear both the now-presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, and the presumed runner-up Senator Hillary Clinton cite healthcare as a major concern. (Whew, the titles alone require hip-boots for wading.)

But we need a little retooling...  Both said every American should have health insurance.  Wrong.  Every American should have health care.

The presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain has a more outwardly obvious, pro-corporation healthcare strategy.  He wants to make sure he keeps the old insurance giants thriving.

But what did Barack Obama say there towards the end of his speech?  That we'll look back on this moment as the turning point?  That we'll see this moment as the time and place in which we made sure every American had healthcare.  Right on, Senator Obama.  But now we're going to help you see what real change looks like for every American: single payer, universal health care. Everybody in, nobody out. This is the moment.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist, CNA/NNOC

CHICAGO – Many years ago as an undergraduate in college, I read a book titled “Disturbing the Universe” (1979) by physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson. In the book, Dyson shares one particular recollection of his difficulty as a father talking to his then young son about the realities of nuclear weapons development and use and how Daddy’s work might contribute to that body of knowledge.

Dyson wrote that it was difficult explaining such things to a child over breakfast.  Indeed.

And as I read more and more patient horror stories that make their way to the guaranteedhealthcare.org Web page from all over the country, I have begun to think perhaps that is the test by which we should determine our future healthcare policy.  

How will we explain our actions toward one another in the area of healthcare to our children over breakfast?

How will Brandy Kozisek, 32, of Eugene, OR, explain to her daughter Isabelle that not only does her mom have a brain tumor for which she cannot get care but that the condition is genetic and the insurance company won’t pay to test Isabelle either? 

Families making tough decisions about babies and birthing and living the American dream as the for-profit healthcare system gobbles up personal choice and freedom.