If you live in California, you might be surprised to learn that our Legislature is on the verge of passing a bill that would set up a system of Universal Health Care in this state. It was proposed by State Senator Sheila Kuehl and if it goes the distance — Governor Arnold has vowed to veto — Ms. Kuehl will go into the history books for substantially more than having played Zelda Gilroy on the old Dobie Gillis TV show.
I don't know the details of the plan…though what the above-linked article says is encouraging. What I'm hoping is that this is not an Election Year stunt to force Schwarzenegger to spend a lot of time defending what would probably be an unpopular veto. On the other hand, his opponent doesn't seem to be getting too solidly behind the proposal, either.
Health care costs in this country have become insane…and in many ways, more threatening to human life than all the shoe-bombers in the world. I honestly don't understand why people who are so concerned about the lives of embryos and zygotes aren't more outraged that, once born, those embryos and zygotes so often exist without the ability to get adequate medical care. (That is not a dig at the so-called pro-lifers. I admire much about their cause and might even join it if the "all life must be preserved" mantra didn't seem to have so many loopholes.)
It isn't just that people die because they can't afford decent medical care. The crunch of the uninsured lowers the quality of health care for us all. Most emergency rooms are packed 24/7 because they're the only recourse for the uninsured when they get sick. As a result, they fill the waiting rooms to capacity. Last February when I went to the E.R. at Cedars-Sinai with my leg infection, the wait was around six hours to get in, and then another hour spent lying on a gurney in a corridor. This was after a Cedars-Sinai doctor has arranged for my admittance. I wasn't waiting for a doctor to look at my leg. He'd done that. I was waiting for the Emergency Room crew to just get around to handling my case and find me a room.
And while I was lying on that gurney, I saw them turning away people who were deathly ill or injured…because there were simply not enough beds for all of them. The scariest thing I saw or heard during my entire hospital stay was when a nurse told me this was — and I quote: "…a fairly light night around here."
The crunch is impossible. The bills can be formidable for the insured, prohibitive for the uninsured. People die because they can't afford health care…and they're just as dead as if they were on an upper floor of the World Trade Center. I hope the California plan goes through, proves workable and becomes a model for the entire nation. And while we're at it, the bill that will soon be on Schwarzenegger's desk that will cap carbon dioxide emissions — and which he says he will sign — may also make us a lot safer than all those things that aren't working in Iraq.
Who says there's no cause for optimism in the world today?