The town I live in has a problem with West Nile Virus. It isn't a big problem, unless you get it, but then, look out. For ordinary people, the best hope is to die, because if somebody takes you to the hospital and they "save your life," you are ruined.
One of our city police officers had just such misfortune. He survived the devastating illness and has fought his way back from nearly total paralysis. Donnie Manry has a prodigious desire to live.
Being a city employee, naturally he had health insurance. The health insurance card in his wallet was what kept the ER doctors from sending him home and letting him die in ignorance, I'm sure. That insurance card got him the best care money could buy--all of it. Every cent he has, every cent he will ever have. At the end of his insurance, he is now $350,000 in debt to the local healthcare system. A debt that I personally warrant they will pursue him to the pearly gates (or any others) to collect.
If he were well and could work, that would be one thing. But Officer Manry is not well, and he is not likely to be able to work in the near future. Fortunately for him, he's got enough time in the pension plan that when his sick days run out next month, he can retire. He won't get much, but his wife works, so they'll be able to get by. His kids won't get any help with college, though, and they may have to sell their house and get something more modest, but they won't starve.
The other thing they won't, is ever--ever --ever be rid of the healthcare debt collectors. They have already been calling; $350,000 is a lot of money, and he owes them! They will put derrogatory entries on his credit report. That's what they do. It's their business.
Now for all the things I think are wrong with this picture, there's a thing or two going right. One is a big one. Tomorrow, everybody who can spare $5 for a meal is going over to the high school here to have a barbecue plate to help out Officer Manry. It would take a pretty big turnout to clear the bill, but we may make a dent in the debt. There are coffee cans all over town in businesses with his picture on them. People drop a quarter, a dime, a buck, whatever they can spare. It's nice to see.
And there's one last thing going his way, and I'm not sure why they haven't messed this one up yet--we live in a "homestead state." The first $15,000 of equity in our homes is safe from creditors. I've known people in other states who have lost their homes because they didn't have this protection when the medical wolves forced them into bankruptcy. This won't happen to the Manry's, and it shouldn't happen to anyone.
Oh yeah, here's the story if you think you want to help, I'm sure you can figure out how.
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Comments: 6
No one wants to see this police officer impoverished, and it looks like his hometown will be helping a lot. If a few volunteers can put a dent in his debt, a few million taxpayers could wipe it out, and save thousands of others, perhaps themselves, from the same problems.
Someone once told me that when you travel in India, you can tell you're in a Muslim neighborhood by the absence of beggars. Apparently Muslims take care of their poor. Perhaps when we have beggars clogging our freeway on-ramps here, we'll get the idea.
We have an attitude about poverty much like the attitude of biblical times toward lepers: it's your own fault--And don't come near me, because I don't want to catch it. We've forgotten (or failed to learn) that giving does more for the giver than for the receiver.
Sometimes it's hard to remember.
Yes, in those countries people sometimes have to wait for non-emergency treatment, which is the criticism we always hear of the the Canadian and the British systems. (Somehow this is not as common in continental Europe, and I haven't been able to figure out why.) But no one goes without treatment, and no one's family goes bankrupt. It's sad that people can't understand this, or the simple fact that a system with profit-oriented private companies is by necessity more expensive than one with a single non-profit government system, and there's more interference in medical decisions from such a profit-based bureaucracy, not less.