Patriotism, Health Care Linked
Lauren Grover
By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
On The Scene
Patriotism and health care.
One makes me think of soldiers and my mom's strawberry and blueberry July 4th flag cake.
The other?
Daunting, tedious reform disputes, uninsured children, medical bills, poor Medicaid reimbursement, a headache.
But, patriotism and health care have everything to do with one another.
Our health care crisis - roughly defined as the careening rise of Americans' demand for treatment, the cost of medical care and the price of health insurance paired with inadequate Federal funding to cover the difference - is a nationwide conundrum we've largely ignored until we can't anymore.
Now it's here, bleeding, oozing, life-threatened: a national injury.
It's terribly complex.
And yet it's terribly important to every single person in the U.S.
Eight-month-olds and 80-year olds.
The bum and the billionaire.
Up until this point, our effort as a nation to solve the health care crisis is unpatriotic at best.
This isn't because our doctors, insurance companies and legislators are hesitant to wave flags.
It's because our idea of patriotism too often is flag-waving, when patriotism in action is actually serious devotion and sacrifice.
Like many of the heftiest issues in life - such as, does God exist and what does He have to do with me - the nation's health care system is too hard to figure out in a good four-hour think session.
This is a matrix of millions of people and billions of dollars constantly in action and flux.
It's obvious there is no easy answer.
But is it just as obvious that its solution requires sacrifice?
What about a large sacrifice by many, many people?
What about sacrifice and unified desire? What about sacrifice, unity and compromise?
Could these values be uttered together by our politicians, our hospital CEOs, our insurance companies, our lobbyists, our drug giants, and the journalists who tell the story of America's health care patching?
I don't know.
Simply put, we are fair-weather patriots.
Our desire - and especially the desire of our leaders - to compromise, work, sweat and sacrifice for America's betterment is low enough to be treasonous.
We love and are loyal to America because of its freedoms, its opportunity, its democracy.
But we love it because it's good to us, not because it's good to all of us - because we're free, not because everyone enjoys all its freedoms - because we have opportunity, not because everyone has opportunity - because we're treated for our diseases, not because everyone is treated for their diseases.
And even with health care, a universal need, we don't want to sacrifice for everyone.
We need a shock.
Our patriotism needs to be revived.
Staff Writer
On The Scene
Patriotism and health care.
One makes me think of soldiers and my mom's strawberry and blueberry July 4th flag cake.
The other?
Daunting, tedious reform disputes, uninsured children, medical bills, poor Medicaid reimbursement, a headache.
But, patriotism and health care have everything to do with one another.
Our health care crisis - roughly defined as the careening rise of Americans' demand for treatment, the cost of medical care and the price of health insurance paired with inadequate Federal funding to cover the difference - is a nationwide conundrum we've largely ignored until we can't anymore.
Now it's here, bleeding, oozing, life-threatened: a national injury.
It's terribly complex.
And yet it's terribly important to every single person in the U.S.
Eight-month-olds and 80-year olds.
The bum and the billionaire.
Up until this point, our effort as a nation to solve the health care crisis is unpatriotic at best.
This isn't because our doctors, insurance companies and legislators are hesitant to wave flags.
It's because our idea of patriotism too often is flag-waving, when patriotism in action is actually serious devotion and sacrifice.
Like many of the heftiest issues in life - such as, does God exist and what does He have to do with me - the nation's health care system is too hard to figure out in a good four-hour think session.
This is a matrix of millions of people and billions of dollars constantly in action and flux.
It's obvious there is no easy answer.
But is it just as obvious that its solution requires sacrifice?
What about a large sacrifice by many, many people?
What about sacrifice and unified desire? What about sacrifice, unity and compromise?
Could these values be uttered together by our politicians, our hospital CEOs, our insurance companies, our lobbyists, our drug giants, and the journalists who tell the story of America's health care patching?
I don't know.
Simply put, we are fair-weather patriots.
Our desire - and especially the desire of our leaders - to compromise, work, sweat and sacrifice for America's betterment is low enough to be treasonous.
We love and are loyal to America because of its freedoms, its opportunity, its democracy.
But we love it because it's good to us, not because it's good to all of us - because we're free, not because everyone enjoys all its freedoms - because we have opportunity, not because everyone has opportunity - because we're treated for our diseases, not because everyone is treated for their diseases.
And even with health care, a universal need, we don't want to sacrifice for everyone.
We need a shock.
Our patriotism needs to be revived.
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