“Health Care for a Few” is Not Much of a Motto
March 2, 2009 by Julia King
Last week lawmakers in Indiana passed an amendment to exclude undocumented immigrant families from Medicaid in order to “…protect legal Hoosiers and spend their tax dollars responsibly,” according to a statement from Representative Jackie Walorski’s office (Walorski is sponsor of the amendment to House Bill 1653).
My own representative (Wes Culver) voted for the measure in part because he said a survey of the district showed 80 percent support for it. 80 percent?! Yikes. We are certifiably down-and-out here in district 49; and people do get cranky when they’re down-and-out, but still…embarrassing (right??).
In a town hall meeting Saturday morning at the Goshen Chamber of Commerce, Rep. Culver and State Sen. Carlin Yoder both said voting against Medicaid for undocumented immigrants was a matter of fairness, as though there is some moral code that involves turning one’s back on sick people if they come from the wrong country.
It’s not easy, this whole health care thing (covering as many people as possible with the least amount of money) but it would be good if we could at least agree that it’s almost always “fair” to grant human beings basic medical care. Not only is it fair, but it’s smart. Leaving significant portions of a country’s (or states’) population without access to medical treatment can quickly jeopardize public health as communicable diseases incubate and spread. Viruses don’t care much about citizenship.
It makes sense to look for ways to save money in the health care system, but there are better places to look than in passports.
For instance, thumb-tacked to the bulletin board beside my desk is a glossy advertisement for the emergency room of a nearby hospital. The hospital is so nearby, in fact, that fifteen years ago when my daughter was born I walked there (in labor) at 3 o’clock in the morning. Why would a non-profit, tax-exempt hospital waste valuable resource courting my “business” when I live so close to its facilities? Why would a hospital advertise its emergency room at all?
Also gracing my bulletin board is a shiny 8-page health “magazine” sent from the Marketing and Community Relations Department of another hospital, one roughly half an hour away from my home. Why is a non-profit hospital from a neighboring city competing for me when I already live a stone’s throw away from a hospital in my own city?
Such mailings and publications (in addition to the billboards and radio and television ads) represent large amounts of money, money that is not treating sick or dying people in Indiana. According to one hospital administrator I spoke with, non-profit hospitals have virtually no regulations regarding expenditures. Advertising, huge CEO salaries, none of it’s regulated. If legislators are looking for places to cut or redirect health care dollars, to see to it that tax breaks within the system make sense, here’s a place to start.
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2 Responses to ““Health Care for a Few” is Not Much of a Motto”
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Julia, as a former employee of that nearby hospital, I am in total agreement with this well-thought-through column. And regarding the 80% results of Wes Culver’s survey….”Yikes” indeed!
Hi Julia–
Must confess that I haven’t been tracking your blog regularly, but just now jumped in again. You are as usual right on in terms of justice and fairness and all that good stuff, but I worry that no one is paying attention. How can we get you a newspaper column?
anyway, keep plugging!
JRB