Locky The Bunny: Health in Developped Countries: A Commodity with no Warranty

Dear Lee Jordan,




Do you have an iPod? I believe you do. Well, if you are one of those "save it all" kinds, perhapy you have around the box in which it came, or the CD, and booklets that came with it. (I believe you have already stuck the stickers to the bumpers of your car or to your non-descriptive lap top of your "frankie" desktop.) Well, perhaps you could check it (but I guess you won't) the booklets. One of them is that thicker with pictures, which you will never read because is the manual, and people never read it until after the first time the iPod broke down and you found out that Apple charges you $35 just for looking at it. THEN you read it and realize it says nothing either new or either useful. The other booklet is the "boring booklet" you sure as hell will never read save the big bold letter that say "Apple One-Year Limited Warranty". It doesn't matter until the iPod brokes doen for good, and we check whether it's within the Warranty Year and if the warranty covers the damage.

You find these warranties to a large list of products, most of them technological products. Then, as we learned a few months ago, you also find a 90 warranty on health services in some hospitals in Philadelphia. Honestly, the first time I read about that I was rolling on the floor laughing. I mean, who the hell thinks about giving warranty to a health service? I mean, the job of the doctor is to sure you, and if you don't get better, you go again and the doc keeps healing you. Of course, then again, I think in our Social Insurance system, where a part of everybody's wage goes to pay health, pregnancy and retirement insurance. I get sick, I go to the doc, and the doc does his or her best to heal me. Sure, sometimes it takes a lot of time to get an appointment, but so it happens in private clinics. Well, maybe I think that way because I live in a small, "under developed" country, and I also have the experience of a "former communist" country's Health System.

Usually, for those who do not live in the US, the idea is sold that the US is like this wonderful, miracle-land where everything is the best it can be in any part of the world. There's wealth and opportunities and the best of everything. Well, allow me to differ. I won't go into the "education" part here, nor will I go into infratructure, industry, employment, production, technology, universal access to telecommunications and opportunities, but lets just tackle the topic of "health".

On the past days, weeks even, I have been alarmed by the news about budget cuttings in the "Medicaid" insurance, which is basically the health insurance program designed for low income people in America. The "better income" health insurance programm would be "Medicare". There's people who fall in between both of these. These people earn too much to be in Medicaid, but they can't afford Medicare. There's not a plan for them, but the US Government had a program set for ten years back in the nineties, to offer health insurance for the children of families in this segment. Not all children have been covered with this insurance so far, but if I recall the numbers correctly, there are round ... two million kids covered? I believe the total number of children that should be covered raises around eight million. Now, this is only the children. You might think that grown ups either manage, or pay some sort of low insurance or something, but what about the elderly? What about a family that has to take care of the Grandpa or the Grandma? No coverage for them in this program. If there are 8 million children, how many adults and senior citizens are then uncovered? Could it be, that then parents are forced to take the kids, the COVERED kids to the doc and get medicins to give to the elders?

In the face of this, President Bush decided to cut back the budget for this plan, and so far has given no signs of supporting an extention of the program, which runs to an end this year, I believe. Because of fraud and misusage? Nah, that's just my theorizing. It's because he does not agree with the requested extention and the larger budget requested. Reason? He claims he does nto agree with how it's presented, he's "willing" to give more money , but with a better plan. Sounds loable, but then again:

1. How can he request a better plan when everybody has been sucked into the war-vortex and no one has had enough time to sit down and work on a better plan?
2. Okay, has he ACTUALLY read the whole proposal before refusing it?
3. Okay, the proposal is not good, where's HIS proposal?

On this matter we can go on and on and on. One would think that yes, if you want to enjoy a good health, or at least the level of attention we enjoy in the poor and under developped, former communist countries, you have to be loaded with money. It does upset me to think that American people is forced to pay to get health, that there where doctors out there who modified their ancient "Hypocratic" oath (I have it posted somewhere) to add: "I swear to help only those who are properly covered by an insurance plan and are up to date with their payments". That was until I read this article in the New York Times about the problems with the Medicare. "Drug lists" changed with no notice, people EXCLUDED regardless they pay up to date their payments because their treatment is too expensive. And here we are talking about AIDS patients. Poor customer service attention, poor hospital attention, messy accounts, serious lack of information about the insured's rights, and so on.

So, even when you pay the big bucks for the best health insurance your money can buy, the treat you bad. They sell you a service, but then hold back and change things at their will, not consulting you, cutting you of any chance to react. People, this is the people WITH MONEY!! People with annual incomes up to $ 80 000!!! I mean, fuck here I am with my barely earned $12 000 - $15 000 a year and I don't have "drug lists". Okay, the social health plan fixes me on generics, but they work and they do the trick. (Well, now that we have been tricked into the CAFTA, who knows for how long. But maybe, if I manage to get back home, I will be again under the protective TBK, and live will be fine and healthy again.) God forbids, but if I get AIDS or Cancer or any "expensive" illness, the social insurance will keep me on medication and treatment regularly until the day I die. And here people who earn six to eight times more than me are tied to a health plan that changes without letting him know and cut them off if their sickness is no longer profitable.

What's wrong with you people?? Where's your innate, human right to health? Mankind has made so many advances in this area, why are you being cut of it? It's already bad that the Health Insurance plans aid to set apart people by their income, etching social gaps among people, cut with the axe of economical "power", but then again, has health been so undervaluated, has human life lost its worth so much that now even those who pay are denied of the minimal expected quality?

People, health, just like education are not goods, but rights earned through centuries of development and blood spilled in historical battles for the greater good. People should not be made compete for it. The economical "vote" should not apply to them. Rich, poor, black, red, yellow, white, christian, jew, muslim, buddhist, atheistic, man, woman, child, adult... everybody should be secured the right to them, and the best of them. We cannot dehumanize to this level. People, we elect Governments, we should make them responsible for the greater good of the society. Aren't health and education VITAL to that greater good. These should never be privatized. People should not be charged for them. Everybody should have access to the best attention mankind is capable of.




Love to All,

Locky The Bunny