Through a story of personal tragedy and the virtues of small-town life, voluntarism, and compassion, the New York Times' David Brooks has written a column that unwittingly exposes our nation's outrageous cruelty and callousness.
In his December 30 column, "Going Home Again," Brooks tells the story of Ruthie Leming, a school teacher and mother of three daughters in St. Francisville, Louisiana (population 1,765), who last year, at age 40, was diagnosed with a virulent form of cancer. Brooks understandably laments the tragedy and applauds Ruthie's community, which rallied around her and her family as her health deteriorated.
"There were cookouts to raise money for her medical care," Brooks reports. On April 10 last year -- officially "Ruthie Leming Day" -- "more than half the town went to a fund-raising concert" to help pay her medical expenses.
Brooks describes other ways that Leming's friends and neighbors came to her aid. At the fundraising concert, for example, someone brought a camper trailer "so Ruthie would have a place to rest and take oxygen." And when Leming died on September 15 of this year, "more than 1,000 people signed the guest book at the funeral." Brooks quotes Ruthie's husband Mike, an Iraq war veteran and a fireman, whose friends helped him get through the tragedy. "We're leaning, but we're leaning on each other," he said. Each year on Christmas eve, Ruthie and her mother would put candles on the graves in the local cemetery. But her mother couldn't bring herself to do it this year. When she drove by the cemetery, however, the candle flames were aglow; one of Ruthie and Mike's neighbors had taken it upon herself to maintain the tradition. "They will never know what this meant to me," the mother said.
Brooks learned about Ruthie Leming's story from his friend Rod Dreher, her brother, who writes and blogs for The American Conservative magazine "The outpouring -- an eruption, really -- of goodness and charity from the people of our town has been quite simply stunning," Dreher wrote. "The acts of aid and comfort have been ceaseless, often reducing our parents to tears of shock and awe."
After experiencing the warmth of the tight-knit community, Dreher decided to move from the Philadelphia area back to St. Francisville, where he grew up but hadn't lived since he left for college. "I thought, 'Even with all the sadness, there's no place else in the world I'd rather be."
Brooks uses this story as a parable about the virtues of what he calls "communitarian conservativism," which he contrasts with "free market" conservativism. Brooks favors both, but laments that the former version -- which he identifies as rooted in "small towns, traditions, and community" -- has gotten less attention.
The support that Ruthie Leming got from her friends and neighbors is indeed heartwarming. Of course, neighborliness and compassion are not unique to small towns. Nor are acts of cruelty and mean-spiritedness confined to big cities. There is plenty of crime, domestic violence, bigotry, and racial and economic tension in rural America.
But as Brooks extols his vision of compassionate conservatism, he casually and conveniently passes over the major outrage of Ruthie Leming's last year on earth -- the fact that her community had to hold fundraisers so her family could pay her medical bills. Brooks wasn't writing a column about health care policy, but implicit in his story is the notion that charity is an adequate substitute for government regulation or funding to meet basic needs.
In no other civilized nation would the Leming family face this double tragedy of debilitating illness and deep debt. Indeed, people in other well-off countries view America's lack of universal health care as cruel and barbaric, as indeed it is.
Charity is a good thing. People will always face tragic circumstances where compassion -- by individuals and by entire communities -- can relieve suffering. As Oliver Zunz points out in his new book, Philanthropy in America, voluntary giving -- by the very rich and by ordinary people -- can benefit society, especially when it is used to support the extra things that government cannot fully support, such as museums, symphonies, theater, and Little League. But conservatives romanticize charity (which former President George H. W. Bush called "a thousand points of light") when they view it as a substitute for government support, and argue that voluntary donations and good will gestures can adequately raise funds for K-12 education, feed the hungry, house the homeless, or pay for medicine, hospitals, and doctors' bills.
The real "community"-wide solution to our health care crisis is universal insurance, which can only be achieved with government setting the rules and providing subsidies.
Exorbitant medical bills are the biggest cause of personal bankruptcies and home foreclosure. In recent years, health care profits -- for drug and insurance companies, in particular -- have soared, while more and more Americans found themselves without any health insurance at all or (like Ruthie and Mike Leming) with inadequate insurance that didn't cover their medical bills. As part of their standard business model, insurance companies calculated which Americans were expensive to cover and refused to provide coverage to those people who had what they euphemistically called "pre-existing conditions."
Last year the nation took a step forward in addressing these problems with a health reform law that requires every American to have insurance, provides subsidies for those who can't afford it, and restricts insurance companies from discriminating against sick people. While America was debating health care reform, the insurance companies, big business, and the Republican Party spent tens of millions of dollars -- in TV ads, campaign contributions, and lobbying -- to oppose and weaken the bill. Now every Republican candidate for president has pledged to dismantle what they call "Obamacare" before it even has been fully implemented.
It is a great reflection on the generosity of the people of St. Francisville, and an awful reflection on American society, that at their time of greatest need, Ruthie and Mike Leming had to rely on donations to stave off financial ruin. In what kind of society do we allow teachers and firefighters to rely on charity to help pay their medical bills?
Peter Dreier teaches politics and chairs the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His next book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the Twentieth Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, will be published by Nation Books in the spring.
I also wrote about this column and my sister's inability to get support despite a diagnosis of schizophrenia here: http://commentarias.wordpress.com/
How can this country still hold its head high when teachers, policemen, firefighters, the core and upholders of the community are left to languish in overwhelming medical bills and mortgages with the pittance they get in payment?
How is this MLK's promised land when the majority of young black men are left to rot in prison while another significant percentage has been reduced to selling drugs on street corners for lack of opportunities?
How can this country boast of the largest number of billionaires in the world when you have people sleeping on park benches and on shop fronts without a hope of where their next meal is coming from let alone how they'll pay for the illnesses that plague them?
America, America, what happened?
Secondly DNR legal orders always save money regardless of age and or medical conditions encountered. I've witnessed several death that were 100% preventable with persons barely 30 years of age via MD's who wouldn't jeopardize their careers to save a disease free adult.
Third America has the best preventive medicine in the world ... sadly it required contributions and thousands of deadbeats are outraged. When given choices between stuff "expensive toys etc" they chose stuff over required contributions.
Like many others I'm alive today because I fled Europe and came to America for my cancer treatments. I couldn't afford those luxuries of waiting for those "panels" determining what services to provide me and when. Massive research discovered end of life discussion patients felt bullied, and encouraged to die because they're burdens to society and family.
In closing America is full of progressives so positive Americans would embrace their wisdom and ideologies until put to a vote and failed. They immediately demand a Judge declare themself wiser than 51% of the people that actually voted, or create Government regulatory Bodies to override Congress. Gay Marriage in California and cap and trade immediately come to mind.
The United States spends two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average, and yet ranks with Turkey and Mexico as the only OECD countries without universal health coverage. Some analysts say an increasing number of U.S. businesses are less competitive globally because of ballooning healthcare costs.
Frankly, I think most Americans would welcome universal health care, free college, free daycare, longer maternity leaves, and free dental if it were paid by raising everyone’s taxes.
Canada and Europe practice preventive medicine; we here practice reactive medicine. Waiting until someone in the last stages of cancer finally goes in for treatment, is not health care…it is a mortuary service for those too poor to pay for insurance, or others who have such lousy insurance coverage.
I'm from this country, and I don't really get it. I guess the message is "make sure you have lots of friends to mooch off of, 'cause otherwise no healthcare for you".
Look at how we do it now. If you are over 65, or a veteran, or get good health insurance from your employer, then you basically pay the same for health care as someone healthier or sicker than you. By stopping health insurance companies from using prior health conditions to set rates, Obamacare forces the healthy to chip in more than they used to. Generally the younger chip in to help the older, whose medical costs are higher.
If healthy people can get health insurance cheaply they will have more money. Many sicker people eventually go bankrupt. They may be unable to afford all their medications and treatments, and thereby be forced to play medical Russian Roulette. Thousands of people in this country die every year from this game, which people in Canada or Europe do not have to play.
What we choose will help determine what sort of country and people we are. Right now we are a country and people that does not like to make choices like this and are willing to put up with the resultant messiness (which generally punishes people of high principle and rewards schemers and shameless hustlers).
==================================Okay, I'll take you at your word -- as long as you can share a link proving what you say -- don't worry, I've already got one:
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/09/free-market-health-care-exist.html
=================================="Even if the hospital bills it, there is no relationship between the bill and what the hospital has agreed to accept as payment in full for those services.
The reality is that real pricing is anything but transparent, and both insurance companies and hospitals prevent consumers from having any idea of what health care actually costs. Worse, the uninsured are expected to pay the full, billed price, which is often several times more than what the hospital has agreed to accept from an insurance company.
So, anyone who expects a free market to fix health care simply doesn’t understand what a free market is.
Health care is not a free market, and certainly does not have transparent pricing."
=================================There, all fixed. Ummm, that IS closer to what you wanted to say?
America does have choices. If America truly demands free services,and equal outcomes for all, they need to outlaw paychecks. I enjoy my beloved Norway; nobody is to poor to contribute something. We have sane laws on education, and immigrations. We pride ourselves on making sure all immigrants can support themselves, before becoming citizens and or permanent residents. Nobody hates the poor in Norway, but neither do we import them in record numbers, because our economy is doing well.
We determine how many we can comfortable support, and once that quota is met, we close those doors, and deport unwelcome guest quickly. Furthermore we don't import more till the prior groups assimilate comfortably. Many in Norway Inquire my opinions of American Values etc. I politely respond America with all its wealth and alleged superiority can't determine a National Language.... Need I say more?
I wrote a similar piece last year at this time, "My Response to Mort Zuckerman: Charity Should Be a Way Station on the Road to Justice"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/my-response-to-morton-zuc_b_406227.html
Over 95% of Medicare payments go to actual health care delivery. Less than 80% of private health insurance payments go to actual health care delivery. And, do you have the slightest idea of how much MORE expensive your health insurance would be if the elderly were included, and not covered by Medicare?
Before suggesting that millions of people lose great healthcare via medicare and medicaid, on the basis of no knowledge, perhaps your conscience--and your own well-being--would be better served to....look up facts? I know the "f-word" here hurts, but it is life/death/pain/suffering we are talking about here, not some new gizmo. It's serious stuff.
And, you may wish to conjure Druid deities to cure you, but one cannot pay for a diagnostic scan with chickens (remember, "chickens for checkups").
New web site- Medicare for All
Get more. Pay less. Cover everyone.
We invite you to review the facts, get answers to your questions and concerns, and sign up.
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 benefits millions of Americans, but places burdens on Americans and America. The average American will pay much more in health insurance costs and taxes. Millions of Americans will experience government intrusions that are now scheduled to occur via the law. The implementation of that law leaves tens of millions of American citizens without health care. We need to replace it with Improved Medicare for All.
http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/Home
The reasons universal health care works well in the Nordic Block is sadly we have low populations of persons who's predominate vocabulary is racism, or I'm special, instead of contributions and how can I help.
Snark OFF