CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED

It is estimated that there are some 45 million people in this country who are without any kind of health insurance. The adults among this group, most of whom are employed, have fallen into the crack between those who earn too much to qualify for medicaid and those who do not earn enough to afford paying for health insurance. These unfortunate folks are the damned who receive little if any health care.

Of the millions who are uninsured, nine million are children. Usually, the only time they get to see a doctor is during a medical emergency. Then they are treated in hospital emergency rooms at great expense to the taxpayers and hospitals. These children get no preventive care and, like their parents, receive little if any treatment for non-life threatening ailments.

Many physicians and dentists refuse to accept medicaid patients because the government only pays a set fee for their services. As a result, children have died simply because they had no health insurance. One young boy had an infected tooth. His mother, who was eligible for medicaid, could not find any dentist willing to accept medicaid patients. The infection spread to the boy's brain. By the time he was hospitalized, it was too late. He died soon afterwards.

This is the richest country in the world with the best medical services available anywhere, but only to those who can afford them. It seems a crime that 45 million people in our land are deprived of affordable health care, especially since nine million of them are innocent children. Collectively, we spend several hundred billion dollars a year on nonessentials for our personal pleasure. There is no reason why we cannot and should not chip in to provide health care for those who cannot afford it.

I have been a long-time advocate of universal health care for our country so that every citizen can receive adequate medical attention. I took this position long before I ever heard of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, that capitalist-hating darling of the left wing, whose latest film ("Sicko") purports to expose the evils of our health care industry.

What kind of universal health care should we adopt? That is a hard question to answer. Some advocate that we adopt socialized medicine systems like those in Canada or Britain. But, both of those systems have many problems and are a real drain on government budgets, resulting in very high taxes. There are good socialized medicine programs in Germany, Sweden, and some other European countries, but their citizens pay a high price in taxes for health services.

Others advocate that we make affordable health insurance available to all citizens. That would require the government to subsidize those without the means to pay for that insurance. Would those government subsidies require an increase in taxes? Not necessarily. Some experts claim that the cost of subsidies would be more than offset by the savings from fewer indigent hospitalizations which would come with the normal health care provided to those who cannot afford it now.

Our society should be ashamed of itself for allowing 45 million people, nine million of them children, to be damned with inadequate or no health care. If the rest of the Western World can provide health care to all of its citizens, the country that developed the atomic bomb and went to the moon should be able to develop a universal health care plan, one that would be absent of the problems experienced by Canada and Britain. The time for us to act is now, not later.