By Ed Weisbart, M.D.
The following text represents the prepared remarks of Dr. Ed Weisbart for his speech delivered to a rally sponsored by the United Mine Workers of America in St. Louis on Sept. 24. The event was a protest against Peabody Coal, which is refusing to pay for health care benefits promised to retired miners, their widows and dependents. To see a video of Dr. Weisbart’s speech, please click here.
Some of my colleagues have asked me why a physician organization would be participating in a labor rally. Let me explain this.
I am here today because of a 57-year-old woman having what she knew to be her second heart attack. Instead of going to the emergency room as most people would, she went home to die rather than risk a $50,000 hospital bill. She knew that a huge medical bill would mean bankruptcy and eviction, but that if she just died at home her mortgage insurance would pay the house off and her son would have a place to live.
I am here today because of my 32-year-old diabetic patient who can only afford to take his insulin three days a week. Without his insulin he’ll need dialysis in two to three years. Only at that point, when his illness becomes a catastrophe, will our system start to pay for his care, including his dialysis, at $70,000 per year. And, by the way, his insulin.
This is like seeing a small leak in your roof and waiting for it to cave in before doing anything about it. I’ll bet there are even more striking parallels in coal mining.
I am here today because of the 64-year-old grandmother whose blood pressure had been well controlled for many years but now it’s 180/115. I asked her what had changed, and she told me she was on her final eviction notice and could no longer pay her rent, buy food for the three grandchildren living with her, and also continue to buy her medications. She said she cannot permit her grandchildren to be homeless. She asked me, “So, Dr. Weisbart, how long can I live without taking my medications?”
I never want to hear that question again.
Every year, 1 out of 3 Americans goes without medical care because of the high cost. Most of them have medical insurance.
Every day, over 100 Americans die because of not having insurance. No one in the rest of the modern world dies from this.
Every American is one illness away from bankruptcy. You have a job, you have insurance, you get sick, you’re unable to work so you lose your job, you lose your insurance, with no way to pay your medical bills you declare bankruptcy, and the rest of us are on the hook for these outstanding debts. 62 percent of bankruptcies are triggered by medical expenses, and 78 percent of them had insurance at the beginning of the illness.
These problems make a mockery of the notion of “American exceptionalism.” We are now the exception in the modern world, in the worst possible way. We are the only place where a diabetic can’t afford his life-saving insulin, where a working mother would choose to die rather than burden her family with a hospital bill, and where a grandmother would need to trade her health for her grandchildren’s roof.
This is not the United States of America that I believe in. This is not the American Dream. And this is not the United States of America that labor built.
You have built a nation where child labor is nearly unthinkable, where decent working conditions are the law of the land, and where workers expect – and demand – a living wage.
You have joined the struggle to build a nation where health care is a human right, where this right is not on the negotiating table to be traded against a decent living wage, and where the rich can’t get richer by blocking your ability to get your medicine, to see your doctor, and to have your life saved in a hospital.
You have joined the struggle for single-payer health care.
My organization, Physicians for a National Health Program, believes the solution to our crisis is right before us: Medicare. It’s not perfect today, but almost every senior would fight long and hard to keep it. Let’s improve Medicare and provide that to each and every American, no matter their age or background.
There’s a bill in Congress, Rep. John Conyers’ H.R. 676, the “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” that would do exactly this. It’s got 48 co-sponsors and growing. We need such law – urgently. Please, ask your U.S. congressional representative to co-sponsor H.R. 676.
With everybody in, and with nobody out, health care would finally become the human right we know it to be.
Thank you for your struggle. You are fighting for your right to health care, you are fighting for my right to health care, and you are fighting for every single American’s basic human rights.
Physicians for a National Health Program is honored to walk beside you.
[Photo credit: Gary Otten]
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