Kristof: The Body Count at Home »
Posted By Beau7890 3 months, 3 weeks ago in Political OpinionAbout as many people who were killed on 9/11 die every two months because of our failure to provide universal insurance — and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing?
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Beau7890
A chicken walks into a bar holding a violin case. He’s wearing a chrysanthemum in his lapel. He sits down at the mahogany bar ...
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Beau78903 months, 3 weeks ago
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Here's the link for those who don't want to log on:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13kristo... -
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Beau78903 months, 3 weeks ago
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I apologize for the long excerpt below, but I think it's important people see this anecdote even if they don't read the entire piece:
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In the debate over health care, here’s an inequity to ponder: Nikki White would have been far better off if only she had been a convicted bank robber.
Nikki was a slim and athletic college graduate who had health insurance, had worked in health care and knew the system. But she had systemic lupus erythematosus, a chronic inflammatory disease that was diagnosed when she was 21 and gradually left her too sick to work. And once she lost her job, she lost her health insurance.
Nikki tried everything to get medical care, but no insurance company would accept someone with her pre-existing condition. She spent months painfully writing letters to anyone she thought might be able to help. She fought tenaciously for her life.
Finally, Nikki collapsed at her home in Tennessee and was rushed to a hospital emergency room, which was then required to treat her without payment until her condition stabilized. Since money was no longer an issue, the hospital performed 25 emergency surgeries on Nikki, and she spent six months in critical care.
“When Nikki showed up at the emergency room, she received the best of care, and the hospital spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on her,” her step-father, Tony Deal, told me. “But that’s not when she needed the care.”
By then it was too late. In 2006, Nikki White died at age 32. “Nikki didn’t die from lupus,” her doctor, Amylyn Crawford, told Mr. Reid. “Nikki died from complications of the failing American health care system.” -
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jordan113 months, 3 weeks ago
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Just heartbreaking. I have a hard time containing my anger at idiots who refuse to SEE the travesty of health care in the US! All those lives lost. All those families devastated. It's just maddening to have to put up with those stupid, stupid people who go along with the propaganda of the health care industry and their stooges like limboob and beck. And their stupidity allows this tragedy to go on. I hope every damned one of them gets a disease and can't get care. I count them no differently than criminals who harm others. The end result of their choice to be stupid is the same. They cause harm to others.
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Progressive3 months, 3 weeks ago
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FTA:
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We now have a chance to reform this cruel and capricious system. If we let that chance slip away, there will be another Nikki dying every half-hour.
That’s how often someone dies in America because of a lack of insurance, according to a study by a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. Over a year, that amounts to 18,000 American deaths.
After Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans, eight years ago on Friday, we went to war and spent hundreds of billions of dollars ensuring that this would not happen again. Yet every two months, that many people die because of our failure to provide universal insurance — and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing? -
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Dionys3 months, 3 weeks ago
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Kristof is a family friend (from a lovely family). His work exposing child prostitution and the illegal trade dealing in children (as sex workers, usualy) was fairly groundbreaking and important. It's nice to see him addressing another concern with such depth and honesty again.
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