The American lack of health care is a disgrace and it's simply immoral..

I've been lucky with the LAUSD School District, but when I had ovarian
cancer at age 43 I had to keep working to keep my health benefits.  I went
back to teaching 6 weeks after each surgery and chemo.  I collapsed several
times at school.  When I retired at age 55 I had extra sick days left.

Worrying about bankruptcy and fighting a potentially fatal disease is very
difficult.  The US is a good country for the rich.

Parkinson's came for me after retirement so I don't have to worry about
keeping my job or raising a family, but some people do.
Medicare and my secondary insurance from the school district paid for my
very expensive DBS brain surgeries.  What about people who don't have
Medicare yet or secondary insurance - (DBS was only paid for the year I had
it done.)Where oh where is the compassion for them?

Thanks, Bernie, for reminding us about what our priorities should be.

Ray
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bernard Barber Ph.D." <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 3:32 PM
Subject: FW: Health care article on US vs. Canada


> Perhaps it's time for us to look with new eyes.
>
>
>
>  _____
>
>
>
>    Go
> <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/29/EDGG6GDPDA1.DTL
>>  to Original
>
>    Two Women, Two Cancers, Two Healthcare Systems
>    By Tom O'Brien
>    The San Francisco Chronicle
>
>    Thursday 29 December 2005
>
>    After a long time away, you see with new eyes.
>
>    I moved back to the United States with my Canadian wife and two small
> boys after living 15 years in Toronto and Ottawa. US health care now looks
> both expensive and scary, leading me to conclude that we'd do better with
> an
> entirely different system.
>
>    Nowhere has this been put in sharper relief than in the story of two
> colleagues. Struck in March with cancer, an American colleague worried
> about
> death, insurance loss and bankruptcy. In contrast, a Canadian colleague
> and
> cancer victim had only her disease to fight.
>
>    Susan was on sick leave when I came to work at my new job in August.
> She
> was middle-aged and single with a grown family and well liked in my
> office.
> She was undergoing chemotherapy to treat breast cancer and not able to
> work.
> Our employer supported her beyond the normal period of sick days and
> vacation.
>
>    But the scary question for anyone but the rich hit with a catastrophic
> illness in the US health-care system is: How long will an employer's
> support
> go on if the battle goes far beyond the time allotted for sickness and
> vacation? Susan worried about the loss of health-care coverage and what
> ensues - second-rate care, bankruptcy, choosing between timely drug
> therapies and even modest necessities. She died this month before those
> fears were realized. But had she lived, she and her family would have
> confronted the excruciating battle survivors have to fight with insurance
> companies, employers and health-care providers over cost, length and
> quality
> of treatment.
>
>    In contrast, my former colleague Kathleen back in Canada was gripped by
> uterine cancer, which had spread to her intestines. While she was locked
> in
> a life-and-death battle for 18 months, she didn't have to worry about
> losing
> her health care and choosing which bills to pay. Canadian Medicare covers
> everyone for everything in hospitals and doctors' offices, including some
> elective procedures. This means no health care-caused bankruptcies. No
> fights with insurers. No insurance-driven financial worries. Kathleen
> could
> save her energy for battling her cancer instead. She did recover, and
> while
> her recovery was not necessarily the direct result of differences in care
> systems, there is no question that she would have suffered more with the
> burden of financial worries related to her health-care needs.
>
>    I hear stories here about Canadians lining up for basic medical care.
> But despite plenty of doctor appointments, occasionally bringing my
> children
> to the ER, and having had a heart procedure myself, I didn't witness any
> delays for necessary (let alone emergency) care. In survey after survey,
> Canadians support public, nonprofit health care by a wide margin.
>
>    And why not? Compared to the United States, Canada has much lower
> infant-mortality rates and a longer life expectancy, according to data
> from
> the World Health Organization. Canadian women get just as many mammograms,
> for example, as do American women. This is achieved despite spending far
> less per person on health care - 10 percent of per capita GDP in Canada
> goes
> to health care versus 15-plus percent in the United States, according to
> WHO
> research.
>
>    After 40 years of private health care in America and 15 years of
> Canada's Medicare, I'll take the latter. But of course, I can't; it's not
> available here. I love my country but not the private health-care system
> that abandons many people and worries even more.
>
>    Few Americans know that every other industrial country in the world has
> a health-care system more or less like Canada's. I think even fewer
> realize
> that we do, too - it's called (US) Medicare. The system that boosted the
> health of Americans 65 and older is similar to Canada's system for
> everyone.
> They're both "public, not-for-profit, single-payer" systems with low
> overhead costs. So why not extend Medicare to every American?
>
>    Our seniors like it. Sure, it will raise the cost of this government
> program by billions of dollars, according to even the most conservative
> estimates. But it will save money for both individuals and employers who
> now
> purchase private health insurance. After all, it's not how much of your
> income you pay, it's how much you keep. You'll keep more under
> Medicare-for-all, and every child, woman and man would get the timely
> health
> care they need.
>
>    Give people the opportunity to face and fight their illnesses, not
> their
> insurance companies.
>
>    Tom O'Brien joined the California Nurses Association (www.calnurse.org)
> upon moving back to the United States in August.
>
>
>
>
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