Why Don’t You Have Health Insurance?

I get asked this question a lot. "Why don’t you have health insurance?" "You work don’t you?" "Well, I work but I’m not really employed", I answer. "Oh", they say as they look me up and down with that all too familiar, "you lazy bum" expression on their face. It is never a fun moment. Some people get mad at me for not having health insurance. They accuse me of being responsible for making everybody else’s health insurance rates go up. But you know, when I sold my labor and was as they say "gainfully employed" I still could never afford health insurance and I have never held a job that included health care as a benefit so what the hec.

There is a lot that I do not understand about the health insurance industry. The industry has its own confusing language. It involves confusing ideas like "spreading the risk" and "satisfying your deductible." Oh yes and then there are the co-payments. We can’t ignore the co-payments. Yes, I find the health insurance industry to be very confusing but I do know that some people are getting very rich in this industry and I also know that the industry if rife with corruption and greed. Just recently for example health insurance company stocks have taken a dive in response to a probe into some questionable practices of Tenet Healthcare Inc. The North Carolina Department of Insurance is about to take punitive action against Blue Cross in that state for deliberately bilking its members and emergency room doctors out of $17 million.

Health insurance rates will be going up by around 15% in 2004. This will mark the third year in a row that they have increased by over 10% This is making some folks rich but is causing havoc for most of us. Unchecked health care costs are causing labor unrest as bosses, who also must make a profit seek to shift the cost of the health insurance onto their employees. Many other employers don’t bother to offer any sort of health care plan at all. Ever rising health care costs are destroying our public transit system. Municipal governments can hardly bare the cost of providing health care coverage for civil servants anymore so they simply lay off workers and privatize everything else.

More and more people can not afford to pay for health insurance. Close to 44 million of us just do without it. That works out fine until somebody gets sick. It also means that 44 million of us are not getting check ups. How many of us have cancer but don’t know it? How many of us will die of something that could easily have been fixed if we had seen a doctor and had a good physical exam?

We need universal health care for every resident in this country. We must fight for nothing less. Everybody who walks our streets, picks our crops, works in our factories, or sits in a board room must have excellent health care paid for with public financing. But this has all been talked about before. Nothing ever happens though. The politicians who take multi-bucks from the insurance companies are not about to cut them out of this lucrative health care business. And so, what they give us are new programs for the elderly, for children, for any number of special groups. What they don’t give us is universal coverage that renders the health insurance industry as non essential.

These same politicians will scapegoat those of us who do not have insurance and are not considered as belonging to any special entitlement group. I have vivid recollections of former President Clinton attacking people like myself in a television address concerning his plan for universal health care. He said that this plan was not meant for those of us who were lazy and who just could not be bothered paying for health care. If I could have I would have reached into the television that night and strangled that crook. I knew right then that his talk about universal health care was a phony snow job.

I am sick of reformism in the health care industry. I am sick of new government programs that have a means test and then provide coverage to specific segments of society. I am sick of marching with my union friends who are fighting for lower co-payments when I don’t have any health care at all. (Although I will keep marching with them.) I am ready for another big push for health care for all, regardless of ability to pay. I don’t trust the politicians, especially at election time. My trust is in us, the uninsured and in our ability to mobilize and demand justice.

Citizens Budget Campaign of Western PA is organizing a push for universal health care. An initial organizing meeting was held on January 24 at the United Steelworkers of America in downtown Pittsburgh. It is just a start. Philadelphia recently passed a referendum calling for universal health care for every resident in that city. Can we do the same here? In the U.S. Congress there is a House Resolution already filed the calls for comprehensive health care coverage for all U.S. residents.

To join this campaign contact Citizens Budget Campaign of Western PA and the Thomas Merton Center. Just call 412-361-3022.