Guest columnist
It’s surprising what 2½ months out of the country does for one’s sense of what’s right and wrong with that country’s culture. Reading no newspapers, listening to no TV or radio, then coming back to the vitriolic health debate in this country was an eye-opener.
When my wife and I left in early June, the health debate was just kicking off in earnest; when we returned it had become, it seems, a real circus. Partisan rhetoric had replaced the initial “let’s see what we can do for all Americans” attitude, fear mongering was evident in the references to “rampant socialism” and “death panels,” and the initial sense that our health care system was in dire need of reform and we’re all in this together had been supplanted by politics as usual.
But this is not a story about the health care debate. It is a story of two sisters, our daughters, who visited us in Canada over the summer. The older, 27, lives in Nashville; the younger, 25, lives in Perth, West Australia. Both have undergraduate degrees from fine colleges, both have winsome and engaging personalities, and each is bright, articulate, ambitious, independent and imaginative, the sort that an older generation would look towards to continue the well-being of America.
But their defining similarities end at this point. The daughter in Nashville was in the process of losing her job and with it any hope of affordable health care.
Despite her chronic asthma which at times had caused her serious problems, she was forced to carry on with no health care, even of the catastrophic variety, simply because she could not afford it. On top of this problem, she had no real savings to tide her over while she pursued another job.
Why? Simply because the cost of living in Nashville was such that her discretionary income was virtually zero. And this is a young lady who lives very frugally.
The daughter in Australia was, as the Aussies are fond of saying, “on a good wicket.” She had a good job, mainly because the Australian economy had not run into the same toxic subprime mess that our Wall Street bankers had gotten us into, and she had health care provided by the national government [in addition, that government provided her with seven weeks annual holiday].
Her health care was simple to understand, simple to use: A doctor’s visit, specialists included, cost her $25; any tests ordered cost her $0; prescriptions cost her $8, no matter what the drug; hospital charges cost her $0.
The last time I checked, Australia had a culture that most Americans admired, and rightly so. Their “livability” index exceeds ours, their economy is in better shape, their education system is rated more highly, they have far less crime per capita and their health care system has created, with far less expenditure per capita, a people who are less sick and whose longevity exceeds ours.
And here’s the kicker: Australians pay a single tax to the federal government — 42–48 percent of their gross income, which is about the same amount of taxes we pay in this country if you add up federal, state, social security, city/county, school and state sales taxes we are subject to.
So here’s my question: Why is it that such a large number of Americans don’t understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy or those lucky enough to work for companies that provide health insurance?
It is an industry that, for the literal and figurative health of our country, needs to be revenue neutral. Making a profit on someone’s asthma or cancer is flat-out wrong. If we leave the health insurance and drug companies to come up with a “good” plan in the current debate, then we are merely leaving the fox in the henhouse.
A public option of some sort is needed in order to level the playing field, provide compassion instead of a better bottom line, and keep things honest, don’t you think?
No wonder then that our older daughter would like to join her younger sister in the land Down Under. I only wonder how far behind joining them their parents will be.
David Gould lives in Durham and teaches history at Durham Academy.
