So we have a new president. I live in Washington, DC, a heavily Democratic city. I also live in a transitional neighborhood that is a few blocks from a traditionally black university. When the networks declared Obama the winner last night, the neighborhood was filled with shouts of joy, with horns honking, with fireworks. I was thinking, though, about a patient.
He called our Help Line yesterday, looking for somewhere to turn. He has four children, very little money, and no health insurance. He also has Stage IV colon cancer. He is at a loss as to where to go for treatment, how to pay the bills, how to avoid bankruptcy, eviction, chaos. And he is one of many.
We are getting more and more calls like this--people pushed to the brink of poverty, or beyond, by a catastrophic illness they never saw coming. No insurance. Now, no hope of getting insurance. Bills mounting. Unable to work. What do you say to a person who feels they are worth more to their family dead than they are alive?
We have a new president, who will be faced with many, many challenges. With the collapse of the economic bubble the attention of Americans drifted away from healthcare. In recent polls, health care ranked low on the list of priorities for people determining how they would vote. What does that mean for this man with four children and metastatic cancer? What does it mean for families with hospital bills in the six figures?
Somehow we must find a way of pushing the atrocious state of our health care system back to the forefront. It is hard, after all, to enjoy the pursuit of happiness when you are one illness away from being destitute.
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