Janaury 30: Poor Bob, Health Care, Criminal

A criminal situation

He left the room, and went up stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas.  There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there, lately.  Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face.  He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

One of the saddest scenes in A Christmas Carol.  The future Bob Cratchit sits with the body of Tiny Tim, who has succumbed to his life-long illness.  I've seen descriptions of Charles Dickens publicly reading this scene to audiences and causing people to faint with grief.  It's tragic and full of the kind of pathos that Dickens did best.  Never mind that Tiny Tim actually lives at the end.  This moment, between a grieving father and dead child, just tears your heart out.

Of course, nowadays, this scene wouldn't happen in Great Britain, at least not because the patient couldn't afford health care.  Britain's National Health Service guarantees that children like Tiny Tim receive the medical attention they need.  That's a good thing.  Regardless of the burden it puts on Britain's government, the National Health Service is a sacred institution for most citizens of the country.  After World War II, Brits decided that decent health care wasn't a privilege to be sold to the highest bidder; they decided it was a fundamental right that everyone deserved.

Of course, working for a fairly large health care organization in the United States, I see the results of having a privatized health care system.  I see people losing their homes because they can't afford to pay the mortgage and their hospital bills.  I see people who put off having hernia surgery because it's expensive and they have no insurance.  I see people suffering with cancer who literally have to throw spaghetti dinners to cover the costs of treatment.  That's really messed up.

I'm lucky.  I have good health insurance.  Of course, the cost of that health insurance sometimes makes it really difficult to pay for other things, like mortgages, car payments, food.  My wife has bipolar.  Her medications cost over $200 every month, and that's with a shitty pharmacy plan.  I have diabetes, have had it since I was 13.  My pharmacy deductions from my paychecks for the first month of 2012 totalled over $250.  I pay close to $150 for health insurance every pay period.  If you total that up, that's around $550 a month for medication and health coverage.  It's enough to make me want to pack my bags and learn all the words to "God Save the Queen."

The United States is one of the few countries in the Western World without a national health care system.  People are suffering.  People are going bankrupt.  People are dying.  There are a lot of Bob Cratchits in this country, sitting by their Tiny Tims, wondering where their American Dreams went wrong.  In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, that's a criminal situation.

Saint Marty (with a lot of other Americans) is just one major health crisis away from being Bob Cratchit.