Guaranteed Healthcare

SINGLE PAYER MINUTE
October 27, 2008

This episode we look at the unconscionable salaries that Health Care and
Pharmaceutical CEO's are paid, while 50 million of us go without
insurance, millions more suffer medical bankruptcy, and suffer
premature mortality.

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?