Public Insurance Option is Not Optional

America’s cry for Single Payer Health Insurance as a public option falls on more and more deaf ears, a clear signal that the health care reform wanted by citizens is NOT the health care reform being considered in Washington.

There is a little town in Manitoba, Canada called Kelwood. It’s so small I could not find it on any maps. So, the best I can tell you is that it’s close to Riding Mountain National Park and the town of McCreary in southern Manitoba about 200 miles from North Dakota.

Kelwood is the home of Alana Levandoski, a singer-songwriter best known for a concert she held in Winnipeg in honor of a group of survivors from the war in the Sudan who moved to Canada. But there is another connection between Kelwood and Winnipeg that relates to the need for public option insurance in the United States.

On July 29, 2008 two young boys were visiting their grandparent’s farm just outside Kelwood. They decided to pass the time shooting targets. Twelve-year old Sam hurriedly raised his rifle to shoot at a bird, hitting himself in the head with the scope. The pain from the impact caused him to drop the gun. It fired…and put a bullet in the right side of Sam’s brain.

Sam was rushed to the hospital in Neepawa for medical treatment. From there he was transported to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg where he underwent a four-hour surgery that began a 12-day stay at HSC. Having lost peripheral vision in his left eye in addition to the left side of his body being paralysed, numerous therapies were begun. During those twelve days, his vision returned and the paralysis went away.

Sam is now re-learning parts of his life affected by brain injury. I contacted Sam’s mother, Jodi, and asked a simple question: "What sort of financial costs did you have with Sam’s incident?" Remember, this is Canada. Yet, I thought that everything provided to Sam couldn’t be free like we’ve been told about the Canadian public health care system. There was the hospital in Neepawa, then the hospital in Winnipeg. There was the brain surgery. There were the numerous therapies.

Jodi responded, "Here in Canada we pay for medicare thru our taxes so there hasn’t been any financial issues for us since the accident."

Can you imagine how much that would cost in the United States? Can you imagine how much the deductible and co-pay would be if you had insurance? And that doesn’t count the monthly health insurance premiums paid for the coverage? Even the single payer health insurance option wanted by most Americans would not be totally paid for by taxes and, yet, our national leaders seem to have forsaken those positions to become followers of the health insurance industry and its lobbyists.

Shame on them. (continued below)

Others Speak About Public Option Health Insurance

Single Payer Health Care Plan On The Table – Talk Radio News Service – Single payer health care supporters held a hearing yesterday at the Committee of Education and Labor to testify on the need for health care reform. Those who testified to the committee was U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Geri Jenkins …

Frances Anderton: Don't Diss Single Payer Health Care If You Haven … – I feel pity for a person who does not know what it is like to go to a doctor and have the first question be, “what’s wrong?” instead of, “who’s your insurance carrier?”

Single payer health care: big breakthroughs, interview with Rep … – Less than a month after 13 single payer advocates were arrested protesting the exclusion of single payer, it is at the table in both Houses, making progress while the multi-payer pro-insurance reform is faltering.

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