Tuesday, September 08, 2009

health care (III): where is the outrage? and where is the solidarity?


I talked to a friend last week who told me that her 2-and-a-half year old little boy had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She said she had the lyrics for a song ringing in her head, something about being "one call away". She had been reminded, again, that we're all only one call away from a crisis, or really bad news.

It's true. One minute you're fine, the next minute you know that you have diabetes, or cancer, or something else.

It's beyond me that Americans will not support a bill just because they don't think there is anything it in for them. If people have health insurance, they are not willing to act on behalf of the 40+ millions who don't. They don't think of the uninsured people, and they don't think of the cost to society.

And, they obviously don't realize that tomorrow it could be them.

5 comments:

Umepojk i Mason, Ohio said...

After all my years in US, that's the one thing I just don't get. There are others, but that's the biggie!

Lotta K said...

Yea... There is a political selfishness here that is really shocking. I don't know how else to put it.

Anna-Lena Heydar said...

Yesterday on the swedish news, an american woman said "we do not want to be socialists".
One of Tage Danielssons characters in Karl-Bertil Jonssons Christmas says - Anyone who will give something away for free is a communist! (causing laughters in every swedish home on Christmas eve)
The funny thing is that a health care system for everyone will be cheaper for everyone, even the ones currently paying for a private insurance!

Lotta K said...

Yeah, but that idea is very hard to explain to Americans. Not to mention the thought of acting on behalf of others... Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who said that caring for others is what makes us human. You rarely hear anyone say that. It almost made me cry.

(And yes I remember that line in Karl Bertil Jonssons jul!)

Lotta K said...

And I am an optimist, I think it will work out. I liked the president's speech today.