- Enza Sebastiani
- San Mateo, CA
- United States
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Would you seriously let an uninsured child die?
I am still appalled by the response of Ron Paul's supporters at the last GOP debate. I can't shake it off. I just wish the more common situation would have been brought up: more than 8 million uninsured children live in the US.
- Uninsured children are 10 times more likely than insured children to have unmet medical needs, such as untreated asthma, diabetes or obesity, and are 5 times as likely as an insured child to go more than 2 years without seeing a doctor.
- Regular health screenings help doctors identify and treat problems preventively and are crucial to a child's healthy development.
- An estimated two-thirds of children and youth with mental health needs are not getting the help they need. In fact, unmet need is as high today as it was 20 years ago.
- Uninsured children are more than 4 times as likely as an insured child to have an unmet dental health need. In 2000, children missed more than 51 million hours of school because of dental-related illness.
- Uninsured children are more likely than insured children to perform poorly in school; in contrast, enrolling children in health coverage has been associated with greatly improved school performance.
- Uninsurance disproportionately affects minority children.
- While 1 in 14 White children is uninsured, the statistic jumps to nearly 1 in 9 for Black children and 1 in 5 for Latino children.
More here: http://www.childrensdefense.org/policy-priorities/childrens-health/uninsured-children/
Debra Smith 200+
The book details how the HMOs actively sewed propaganda and misinformation to defeat and derail Healthcare reform for decades. It details how many people are effectively uninsured, how the companies deny treatment to eligible people to increase their bottom line and how they lie, cheat and steal profit.
He talks about the reality of healthcare in the USA from a view inside the crooked campaigns and how they used fear and influence with politicians and reporters to protect profit and kill people.
Children are dying in the richest nation on earth and the rest of the world just shakes their collective heads to know that a population can be this effectively propagandized to their own detriment.. The icing on the cake is that so many Americans are proud of the way it is being done.
Enza Sebastiani
Debra Smith 200+
2) I would call your media and journalists to account for failing in their duty to their country as the 4th Estate by simply publishing that propaganda from the HMO executives that just wined and dined them without any investigation or vetting of the facts.
3) I would challenge the supression of valid research. A major evaluation of healthcare systems around the world was published in the Harvard Business Review (I think) not long before Michael Moore's movie on healthcare came out so the Insurance industry suppressed it and they propagandized against Moore's movie so heavily that it was virtually "unAmerican' to see it.
4) I would work with all my might to challenge the religious right on their stance against healthcare. It was the religious leaders who fought for and stayed with the implementation of healthcare in Canada in the 1930s. They made it a moral issue of duty from one human being to another that resonates even with atheists and cuts across religious differences. Almost all faiths know that children deserve survival. I would quote scripture at them until they plugged their ears in pain and shame" Better that you be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck than one little child be lead astray(or allowed to die because of profit mongering)" That is obviously not exactly it.
I would ask them if they knew the story of the Good Samaritan?
5) I would keep at it on the basis of the proven research on cost effectiveness of national healthcare programs compared to the cost that America pays now. The others are less expensive.
7) I would shove every lie into every liar's face until they cried uncle because it would be a far easier thing to hear the corporations moan about loss of profit than to bear the death cries of those kids
Debra Smith 200+
8) I would counteract the propaganda that in systems like Canada people have to wait for procedures.
YES, we wait in line for procedures because EVERYBODY who needs a knee is in the line in Canada unlike the USA where the lines are short because very few people can afford a new knee or have the coverage to get one. In Canada, if you are poor you get the knee you need and there are people who are richer than you are in line behind you. It is based on urgency of need and on a proper queue. Rich or poor you get a knee and that makes for a longer line. (Anyone who wishes to jump the line is welcome to travel to the US and pay for it!)
No matter who you are you do not die or go without healthcare when you are in need and you are not bankrupt when it is all over.
Matthieu Miossec 100+
On an unrelated note: Is that Neil De Grasse Tyson? I envy you!
Enza Sebastiani
Yes, that is indeed Dr. De Grasse Tyson ;-) I was lucky enough to bump into him at the American Museum of Natural History in New York... He was leaving his office to go to yet another interview, I believe with Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report.