If You Must Die, Die Quickly

Recently former and possibly future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a minster from Arkansas and darling of the conservative Christian community gave a speech about health care.  As a minister I anticipated words filled with compassion for the sick and care for the poor.  This was after all the message of Jesus.  Throw out the money changers in the temple and care for the down trodden.  Had I lived prior to 100 A.D. Jesus would have likely found me to be a great sympathizer.  

Well Minister Huckabee spoke concerning the issue of the new health care reform, specifically the new law that now forbids insurance companies from not insuring a person with a preexisting condition.  No longer can an infant born with a condition be denied.  No more can a person with a medical problem be denied coverage and sentenced to either death or poverty in the face of medical bills they can't afford.  While I would think Minister Huckabee's Christian leanings would have caused him to laud these changes it was instead quite the opposite.  He compared these humane changes in policy with a person whose house burns down, seeking insurance after his home has been turned to rubble.  He said we would never give the man a policy that paid for the house he chose not to insure, why should we cover a person with an illness?

Health care is uniquely universal.  Everyone has a story.  Everyone faces crises and frustration in the face of an industry that in many ways acts like a puppet master pulling the strings that govern our lives.  The only thing that differentiates one person from another is their ability to pay.  In my neighborhood there is a young man named Greg.  I say young because he can't be much older than myself.  Perhaps five years but no more.  He runs a landscaping business and his wife is a Realtor.  If they have health insurance they must have astronomical premiums and huge deductibles.  These are normal people living a middle class life.  They are raising three children and trying to be part of the American dream.  A month ago Greg was diagnosed with cancer.  Not just cancer, Pancreatic cancer.  This was the form of cancer that took my mother and I knew when I heard the diagnosis Greg's time on this earth was limited.  Almost no one survives Pancreatic cancer, it is literally a death sentence, the only determining factor being if you last six months or a year.  The doctors will pour poison in your body in a futile attempt to stem the tide leaving what remains of your life a path of sickness and misery.

This past weekend Greg's wife put together a community auction to raise money for his care.  There was a large response and a wide assortment of tickets, signed footballs and other donations were sold one by one.  When I learned of this my immediate response was, how wonderful that a community would band together like this.  That so many would contribute to Greg's care.  Largely a product of my analytical nature my thought process didn't stop there.  I kept thinking and the more I thought the angrier I felt.  I grew angry because this nation, my nation, has put a man in a position that he and his family must spend his last days in this world in a desperate struggle to raise money for his care.  America is unique in this.  Almost all other wealthy nations would never consider excising such a torture on their citizens.  The society would care for the man that participated in its growth and will ultimately surrender his life.  The family would spend its last days celebrating the man and his love for them.  The dying man would collect his thoughts, pursue what dreams he could and close out his final chapter.

Why is this society so different?  Why is this nation so callous?  Why is it that a man who is professes to be the voice of Jesus in this world would turn his back on the dying?

The only explanation that I can find is that our society has chosen political identity over common sense.  The passions created by the games and brinkmanship seem to supersede rational thought and consideration.  If this is not the case then the only other conclusion can be that our society is insane.   Our society is currently so myopic it can't see beyond its current condition.  We only care for those we know, those we don't are irrelevant.  Our leadership only cares about its continuance in power not in the legacy it leaves.  Are we different than those that preceded us or simply a reflection of them?

The answer to this question lies in our immigrant past.  It exist in the lives of people who crossed an ocean leaving every scrap of their lives behind them driven by a hope that their children would have a better life.    It exists in the battles by labor in the early part of the last century to take children out of factories and create a humane working environment.  It exists in the ashes of a depression so severe Social Security was implemented to ensure that an old person should not die in poverty.  It exists in a government program called Medicare to guarantee them health care in their last years.  Where are the voices of the seniors when it comes to giving the same protection to our children?

For the sake of this nation, we must decide who we are.  We must decide if our citizens have relevance or if they are simply tools to be used and discarded when their usefulness ceases.   An alcoholic can only cure the disease by admitting they have a problem.  I would be willing to bet that if the issues were explained to the people of this country in a simple form the agreement on the nations needs would be wide spread.  It is only when the explanation comes from a party that the entire process breaks down.  Money controls everything, people control nothing.

My neighbor Greg is just a simple man. He is a man that did what he was supposed to do.  He is a man in a nation of three hundred million and he deserves to die in peace.