Much like John McCain tried to put a local, personal face on
economic troubles with Joe the plumber, the National Nurses
Organizing Committee looks to make personal stories from small towns
on its Web site every day evidence of health care gaps.
The Sept. 24 story on the Web site, www.guaranteedhealthcare.org,
is that of a Ripley woman who had no insurance but suffered with
persistent abdominal pain and vomiting. She visited doctors who did
not recommend further testing because of the price. The woman
collapsed one day and eventually received testing that confirmed she
had cancer that spread throughout her entire abdominal region. She
then lived at home, administering her medications and IV tubes with
a nurse coming once a week. The woman died, and her sister-in-law,
Anne Gentry, submitted the story to the Web site, which carries the
banner, "We don't need insurance, we need guaranteed health care."
Chuck Idelson, a spokesperson with the National Nurses Organizing
Committee, said that type of small town story mirrors what's
happening nationally.
"There's not a day in which there's not a new story in the news
about the horror that's facing families across America," Idelson
said from his California office. We've been doing a campaign since
Labor Day, issuing a story every day ... of patients or their
families who have encountered problems with the meltdown of our
health care system."
Idelson said more than 1,000 stories have been submitted to the
Web site, telling the stories the organization's nurses see often.
"Imagine, in the wealthiest country on earth, even with all of
our economic woes, and we have people who can't get cancer
treatment," he said. "Or what our nurses see all the time, people
who are prescribed medications and go every other day or cut their
pills in half or share medications with family members because their
co-pays are so high."
Idelson said premiums have risen 10 times faster than wages in
the past 10 years, and though it's not as "glamorous" as telling
stories about the clamp on Wall Street, the health care crunch is
related.
"Across America, people are dying a silent death," he said. "When
people are using their life savings to pay their medical bills, how
are they paying their mortgages?
"There are multiple levels under which this is part of our
economic crisis."
Idelson said a solution is to look at the Democratic and
Republican presidential candidates' health plans. He said the
organization grades McCain's plan with an F and grades Barack
Obama's plan at a B+.
He said another solution is to expand Medicare to cover everyone.
"Everyone would have health care coverage, health care would not
be tied to your job," Idelson said. "You'd have a huge cut in
waste."
Idelson said the original Social Security plan introduced in the
1930s by Franklin Roosevelt encompassed that kind of system. After
World War II, Harry Truman also tried to cover the nation in health
care, but the plan was shot down both times by doctors, hospitals
and insurance companies, he said.
Idelson said the majority of doctors now support such a system,
along with a majority of nurses. And polls show two-thirds of
Americans believe the government should guarantee health care for
everyone, he said.
"People say this is socialized medicine, but right now, we have
insurance-run health care," he said. "We've just seen this huge
bailout - our federal government taking part ownership of our
banking system - if our government can get involved in the banks,
why can't they attend to the health of Americans who aren't getting
health care?"
Idelson said his organization has 85,000 members across the
country that are passionate about health care, as they see the
nation's collapsing health system every day.
"We've heard from people in West Virginia, things like 'Don't get
sick in rural America,"' he said. "We've seen hospital closures and
clinic closures; that has to end."
Copyright State Journal Corporation Oct 24, 2008
(C) 2008 State Journal-Charleston WV. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved