One of the most profound questions Jesus asked during his ministry was put before a sick man who had spent 38 years waiting near the base of the Bethesda well for his turn at treatment. “Do you want to get well?” Jesus queried, as the man lay
One of the most profound questions Jesus asked during his ministry was put before a sick man who had spent 38 years waiting near the base of the Bethesda well for his turn at treatment. “Do you want to get well?” Jesus queried, as the man lay surrounded by other broken, paralyzed, blind, mentally and spiritually infirmed people waiting for his turn to be healed.
Today, the man from this story could be any one of America’s poor or uninsured who lay in wait within the nation’s many overburdened hospital emergency rooms. It is only because of faith and perseverance that I am not one of them. As a recovering cancer patient, I have experienced first hand the lifesaving work of physicians, nurses and other health care workers who are able to focus on restoring a person’s health rather than being saddled by administrative policy and financial restrictions.
Recently, a hospital in my district has come under fire for reportedly engaging in a deplorable practice known as “patient dumping,” the inhumane exercise of turning away poor, uninsured and elderly patients to other facilities, refusing to administer care due to overcrowding and other obstacles. It should be no surprise that a majority of the patients being turned away are poor and often people of color. This practice is even more startling when you consider the fact that six hospitals have closed on Chicago’s South Side, placing an enormous burden on any hospital whose doors are still open, with thousands of people depending on fewer hospitals, atop the over-restrictive nature of an already broken healthcare system.
Nearly 47 million Americans are without health insurance. Since the beginning of the recession, an estimated four million additional Americans have lost their health insurance. On average, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage every day. Where then do these citizens go, and to whom do they turn when they need to get well? Are they condemned to suffer silently, waiting for 38 years like the man at the foot of the Bethesda well?
Health care reform is the single most important domestic issue facing our nation. In 2007, we spent $2.2 trillion on health care (16 percent of its gross domestic product). This is why expanding coverage and making insurance affordable has been one of my top priorities since taking office in 1993. We are increasingly becoming a nation of the “have-mores” versus the “have-nots” — the invisible people who linger on the margins of society as they seek the American Dream.
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