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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/opinion/kristof-scotts-story-and-the-election.html?_r=0
I wrote in my last column about my uninsured college roommate, Scott Androes, and his battle with Stage 4 prostate cancer — and a dysfunctional American health care system. I was taken aback by how many readers were savagely unsympathetic.
“Your friend made a foolish choice, and actions have consequences,” one reader said in a Twitter message.
As my column noted, Scott had a midlife crisis and left his job in the
pension industry to read books and play poker, surviving on part-time
work (last year, he earned $13,000). To save money, he skipped health
insurance.
A year ago, he encountered difficulties urinating and didn’t see a
doctor in part because of the cost. By the time the prostate cancer was
detected, it had spread to his bones.
“I blew it,” Scott told me several times. He repeatedly acknowledged
that he should have bought insurance and should have seen a doctor as
soon as his symptoms appeared.
Scott showed immense courage in telling his story. He worried that his
legacy would be an unflattering article spotlighting his foolishness,
yet he went ahead for two reasons. First, he said that readers might
learn from his mistakes and call a doctor about that suspicious lump or
mole. (If that’s you, do it now!) Second, he said he hoped that his
story would help readers see the need for universal health care, so that
others wouldn’t suffer as he has.
That’s in part what this election is about. If President Obama is
re-elected, Obamacare will stay in place and health insurance will
become close to universal in 2014. In contrast, Mitt Romney has promised
if elected to work to repeal Obamacare — and any American who made a bad health care decision would continue to suffer.
To many of my readers, that’s fine.
“Not sure why I’m to feel guilty about your friend’s problem,” Terry from Oregon wrote on my blog. “I take care of myself and mine, and I am not responsible for anyone else.”
Bruce wrote that many people in hospitals are there because of their own
poor choices: “Smoking, obesity, drugs, alcohol, noncompliance with
medical advice. Extreme age and debility, patients so sick, old,
demented, weak, that if families had to pay one-tenth the cost of
keeping the poor souls alive, they would instantly see that it was money
wasted.”
That harsh view is gaining ground, particularly on the right. Pew Research Center polling has found
that the proportion of Republicans who agree that “it is the
responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take
care of themselves” has slipped from 58 percent in 2007 to just 40
percent today.
Let me offer two counterarguments.
First, a civilized society compensates for the human propensity to screw
up. That’s why we have single-payer firefighters and police officers.
That’s why we require seat belts. When someone who has been speeding
gets in a car accident, the 911 operator doesn’t sneer: “You were
irresponsible, so figure out your own way to the hospital” — and hang
up.
To err is human, but so is to forgive. Living in a community means being
interconnected in myriad ways — including by empathy. To feel
undiminished by the deaths of those around us isn’t heroic Ayn Rand
individualism. It’s sociopathic. Compassion isn’t a sign of weakness,
but of civilization.
My second argument is that if you object to Obamacare because you don’t
want to pay Scott’s medical bills, you’re a sucker. You’re already
paying those bills. Because Scott wasn’t insured and didn’t get basic
preventive care, he accumulated $550,000 in bills at Seattle’s Swedish
Medical Center, which treated him as a charity case. We’re all paying
for that.
Scott and I spoke on Sunday morning about whether his story might move
some critics of health care reform. He was weakening and mused that he
probably didn’t have long. A few hours later, Scott slipped into a coma.
He died Monday morning.
We can’t be certain that the cancer would have been found earlier, when
it was more treatable, if Scott had been insured. But it’s a reasonable
bet. Researchers have estimated that one American dies every 20 minutes for lack of health insurance.
In other countries, I’ve covered massacres, wars, famines and genocides,
and they’re heart-rending because they’re so unnecessary and arbitrary.
Those massacred in the Darfur genocide in Sudan might be alive if they
had been born in Britain.
That’s how I feel about Scott. His death was also unnecessary and might
not have occurred if he had lived in Britain or Canada or any other
modern country where universal health care is standard and life
expectancy is longer.
So Scott, old pal, rest in peace. Let’s pray that this presidential
election will be a milestone in bringing to an end this squandering of
American lives, including your own.
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