Arguing with some people about President Obama's proposed health care reform plans is like
arguing with a dining room table. Death panels, Nazi comparisons and screams of a "leftist coup." This is the tenor of the debate surrounding our broken health care system in this country at present, and it is a damn shame. Scream above the fray with wild arms flailing, evoking fear and doubt, and you can send people into a blind panic. This is happening as we speak. Big Medicine is making sure of it.
Frank Viviano writes about this tragedy in a very personal World View column this week. As CBS 5's foreign correspondent he has lived in Europe for two decades. And
he is here to tell you that you are being lied to:Almost every step into the chaotic jungle of medical treatment in the
United States is fraught with anxiety. Worries about the strangling
limits and byzantine terms of private insurance. Worries about the
immense burden of premiums for those who do not enjoy access to a
job-related group policy –$15,000 per year for a family of four is
common and more than $20,000 by no means unusual. Worries about the
ever-present danger of a lost job or a policy's sudden cancellation.
Nobody loses sleep about these things in Europe.
Indeed, no one worries about them in the rest of the Developed World.
Contrary to what you hear from the opponents of reform and their
corporate bankrollers, we are not talking about crypto-Communist
totalitarian states. Universal public health care is taken for granted
in all but one of the globe's affluent capitalist societies. The United
States is the pathetic caboose on that luxury train, the only modern
democracy without a universal health care system.
I'll get personal here, because it's evident that the opponents of such
a system either don't understand it or are deliberately lying to you
about it.
When I'm sick, I simply give a call to my physician, Dr. Enrico
Gonnella, whose office is less than half a mile from my home. I've
never waited more than 15 minutes to see him. If I need prescriptions,
the pharmacy downstairs fills them on the spot for free. If I need to
be hospitalized or examined by a specialist, Dr. Gonnella makes all of
the arrangements, with the most qualified colleagues available
nationwide.
The rightwing pundits on Fox News and their pals in the U.S. Congress
claim that people like me are trapped in a socialist medical gulag,
with very few options when we are seriously ill and all of them lousy.
Last year, I had a cancer scare, and wound up a week later in the close
care of a Milan physician certified in both thoracic surgery and
internal medicine. The hospital was Italy's equivalent to the Mayo
Clinic. The doctor had completed residencies not only in Italy, but in
France and the United States. Over three days, he spent eight hours
with me before determining that the problem was benign.
It dizzies me to think of the cost of similar treatment at home, in dollars and insurance anxiety alike.
Read the World View column in full, then come back here to tell us what you think about Viviano's proclomations about European medicine, his thoughts on the Fox News fear campaign and/or your thoughts on how the US can get out of this medical mess.
[Photo by Hamed Saber]
