^{Posted on October 5, 2009}

Single-payer national health care plan backed

Local event shows support for proposal to provide health insurance to every American

By Dann Denny
Herald Times (Bloomington, Ind.)
October 1, 2009

As Jay Bainbridge told a crowd of more than 60 people about the death of his friend, the room grew pin-drop silent.

Bainbridge, a retired Bloomington counselor, was a friend of Libby Yarnelle, the former executive director of Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, who died last June at the age of 29 from a rare form of cancer.

“Libby was a bright, energetic, beautiful person,” he said. “After graduating from college she could have worked for a big corporation that provided health insurance. But she chose to work with the poorest of the poor at Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard.”

Bainbridge said Yarnelle began feeling a troublesome pain in her side about three years ago, but did not have it checked out by a doctor because she didn’t make much money and had no health insurance.

Eventually, he said, Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard found a way to provide health insurance for Yarnelle. She went to the doctor who diagnosed her with cancer, eight months after the onset of her pain. On June 17, the cancer took her life.

As Bainbridge scanned the audience, his eyes misted and his throat grew tight.

“Maybe Libby would have died anyway, but I sure as hell would have liked to see her get a chance by seeing a doctor earlier,” he said. “Who knows how far the cancer had spread by then.”

Bainbridge said when his wife was a student in the IU School of Medicine in 1968, Bobby Kennedy came to the school to speak about universal health care.

“Someone asked him who would pay for it and he said, ‘You are; you can afford it,’ ” Bainbridge said. “Don’t you wish we had a politician today who had the guts to say that?”

Bainbridge was one of about 10 people who spoke during a one-hour press conference Tuesday night at the Monroe County Courthouse — each expressing support for single-payer national health insurance.

The press conference was timed to coincide with the arrival of the “Mad As Hell” Doctor Care-A-Van — which recently had a rally in Bloomington — in Washington, D.C., to urge Congress to expand Medicare to cover every American.

Dr. Rob Stone, an emergency room physician at Bloomington Hospital and director of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan, said the U.S. stands alone among industrialized countries in the world.

“We are the only country that does not provide health care to all its citizens,” he said. “It’s a bad situation and it’s getting worse.”

Stone said a 2002 study found that 18,000 Americans died each year from preventable diseases because they did not have access to health care.

He said a new Harvard study, which recently appeared in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health, showed that 45,000 Americans die each year from preventable diseases because they lacked health insurance.

“That’s 120 people a day, or one every 12 seconds,” he said. “It’s more than the number of people who die each year from auto accidents and homicides combined; more than the entire number of student, staff and faculty at Indiana University.”

Stone said all the health care reform bills being considered in Washington fall short of the mark. He said the Senate bill being put together by Max Baucus’ Senate Finance Committee would — according to the Congressional Budget Office — leave 25 million Americans uninsured.

“I find that more than frustrating,” he said. “We can’t wait another 12 seconds for the next person to die.”

Vic Kelson, president of the Monroe County Council, said health care costs comprise 16 percent of the county’s 2010 budget; and that he expects the increase in health care costs from 2010 to 2012 to exceed the increase in property tax revenue.

“Something has to give,” he said. “The council provides essential services that benefit everyone. If we have to cut staff, we will have to cut services.”

Mavis Anderson, a social worker at Bloomington Hospital, told the story of a 64-year-old woman who recently came to the hospital’s emergency department with a persistent cough. Tests showed she had lung cancer.

She said the woman had worked all her life and saved money for retirement, but had no health insurance. Because she was too young for Medicare, the woman realized she had to use her entire retirement savings for treatment, and if she survived she would have to live on minimum Social Security payments.

“We should be thoroughly ashamed to allow a woman to be treated like that at her stage in life,” Anderson said. “People should not have to live in poverty because they can’t afford health care.”

As the meeting came to a close, a man in the audience, Bill Todd from Nashville, told Stone, “We are taking the high road but the people working against us are taking the low road. Why don’t we demonize them like they demonize us?”

Stone said he preferred to use facts and common sense reason rather than harsh rhetoric.