How's your health?

Healthy?

             "'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.” Henry David Thoreau

My friend, Harry, is in the hospital. He is having triple by-pass surgery this morning—maybe even quadruple by-pass. I have lighted the Virgin of Guadalupe candle for him and will go and sit with his wife, Sharon, at the hospital.

Harry is the kind of person who takes care of himself in what I would call 'California style'. He goes to 'hot yoga' two or three times per week, does regular detox regimes, eats a basically vegan diet, and meditates every day. He didn't exactly have a heart attack—just chest pain that was enough to get him to the ER. There they scanned, then stressed, then catheterized to take a look at his coronary arteries. He had partial occlusions in four of them. They transported him by ambulance from the beach, where they were vacationing with Sharon's family, to Birmingham, some five hours away. That was yesterday—the surgery is first thing this morning.

Contrast that with another friend of mine who has a hairline fracture in her hip. She's been in constant pain for several weeks. She went to her primary doctor, who sent her to an orthopedist. It took two weeks to get that appointment. When she finally got in to see the orthopedist, she was told he needed an MRI to determine if, in fact, she has a fracture. That appointment took another two weeks. No one would prescribe pain medication until they knew what 'they were dealing with'. She had the MRI on Monday. When she called the orthopedist office Tuesday afternoon, she was told he would be out of the office until week after next, and that he would call her with the result when he came back from vacation. So she will wait another two weeks.

What is the difference? Insurance. Harry has excellent insurance, and my other friend has mediocre insurance. Seriously, is this what we want? What would the course of events have been if she'd had no insurance at all (like 35-million other Americans)? If we think everyone has equal access to health care in this country, we delude ourselves. This may be “the greatest country on earth” but if all its citizens aren't equal even in so critical an area as health care, then we have some work to do. Ask yourself this: How would I want to be cared for if I had a heart attack, or broke my hip? Better still: How would I want my child dealt with in an emergency? It's worth some thought.

                                     In the spirit,

                                    Jane