Wednesday, June 12, 2013

REALLY? 2013?

Several days ago CNN showed a piece re: the reuniting of a woman seriously injured in the Boston Marathon bombing and the woman who had befriended her [used her scarf as a tourniquet on the ‘amputated’ leg and held her hand until the EMTs arrived].  Obviously “connected”, yet neither woman had the other’s name.

Thanks to the many “social media” of 2013, CNN was able to locate the good samaritan and arranged to fly her to Boston for a very emotional reunion!  Certainly one of the advantages of such mass media is the possibility of enabling us to function as a larger community.  A “stranger” in Boston is located in California – and is a woman whose spontaneous reaction after the bombing was to “be come a friend” to one in need.

Towards the close of the CNN segment it was revealed that there was to be a fund-raiser” for the Boston woman’s medical expenses!  She had lost her lower left leg; had her right leg severely broken; and was now needing extensive rehab – and she needed a fund-raiser to cover her medical expenses!

Really?  In 2013?

Is there any other nation in the civilized [?} industrial world that would place the burden for medical payment on a victim of an act of terrorism?

Really?  In 2013?

Free health care ought to be the norm for us. Not just because it is more in line with the teachings of Jesus. Not because it is more in line with the practice of early Judaism. Not because it is more in line with the teachings of Muhammad.

Free health care ought to be the norm for us because it is the right thing to do.  It is the economically smart thing to do.

Ever since we accepted insurance for medical payment we have accepted an “other” between us and our physician or other care provider. In these past 50+ years the powers of those “others” have grown almost absolute in their controls over doctors, nurses and other care providers. And we can’t “elect” them!

Really?  In 2013?

It is time for all of us to initiate the needed conversations so that “affordable” health care is freely available.

Then we might move even closer to being “one community” with liberty and justice for all.