[lit-ideas] Re: Life or death
- From: "Carol Kirschenbaum" <carolkir@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 12:20:46 -0700
Irene wrote:
"Children do need more care, with immunizations, ear infections and the like,
but there's little excuse for most adults. "
ck: Huh? Are you serious? "Little excuse" for what--for getting sick? The
administration ("conservatives") would have us all believe that everyone would
be fine in this country if we only ate less and exercised. Obesity as the new
Black Death, the omnipotent cause that's All Our Fault. This media campaign
(which you've bought into, apparently) is actually shoddy excuse for a genuine
health care system. Not that obesity is good, or that it doesn't cause some
problems, but low weight does not obviate the need for medical treatment, of
course.
I referred to my asthmatic friend in her 50s specifically because she
represented, if you will, a classic case. She worked throughout her hard life,
paycheck to paycheck. A host of rotten diseases tend to hit people in their 40s
and 50s, often due to medical neglect. (Caught early, many diseases are easily
managed, medically and by lifestyle. Later, they're costly and disabling, like
severe asthma.)
Irene scoffed at gaining a mere six years of life from advanced medical
treatment. What about the increased quality of life before death, from years of
regular medical care? What about treatment that allows someone to work--mental
illnesses come to mind--versus no treatment, that lands a poor soul on the
street, babbling to herself?
And what about this "basic screening" for colon cancer and breast cancer, among
others? Catch a tumor early and it's not necessarily
a cancer. But uninsured, working poor people wait until they can afford the
treatment (which is EXPENSIVE--meaning, a huge chunk of what's left when you
work at Wal-Mart).
I'm far from done with the healthcare issue. Now that I've finally finished up
my internship hours and earned another master's degree, the job I'll land will
probably have something to do with referring people to public and nonprofit
resources. The catch is, those resources are practically nonexistent in this
region, at present. Over and over I see new social workers gasping when they
realize that the list of sliding fee clinics amounts to zero. No dental care.
Free meds from those philanthropic pharmaceutical companies, for a while.
There's the county emergency room. Very frustrating. Motivated people get
referred from agency to agency, until they lose hope and just stay at home.
Very frustrating.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out how the lack of health care factors into
a deep spiral of joblessness and poverty. Take teeth! The sole dental care for
Medicaid patients (in this region) is teeth pulling. No fixing, just pulling.
Same for the uninsured--and here's where age tends to be a tipping factor. Ever
notice the toothlessness among homeless people, for instance? Before those
teeth were pulled, somehow, there was pain. Maybe abscesses (commonly leads to
sepsis and death, unbeknownst to most of us). So that person with rather
unsightly teeth has been ill. Now he's got no front teeth. (If the back teeth
are gone, he's probably got serious digestive problems.) A person with bad or
missing teeth is less attractive than others, and less likely to land that job
offering benefits. Less health care when needed. Less and less time spent
working vs suffering in pain, as stamina decreases. Get the picture?
Carol
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