Dear Sen. Specter: How About Some Health Care?

Dear Sen. Specter: How About Some Health Care?
By Brendan Skwire
Add Comment Add Comment|Comments: 0 |Posted Jun. 15, 2009

PHOTO BELOW: This is what using your kidney looks like -- an anonymous Daily Kos diarist shared her pain. Photo used by permission.

Dear Sen. Specter:

It’s me, Brendan Skwire. You know, Mr. Sunshine.

I’ve called your office quite a few times regarding the need for a public option in health care reform, which I guess is about as good as it’s gonna get considering you and the rest of your colleagues on the Hill are too timid or too indebted to the death-by-spreadsheet health care industry to support real single payer universal health care. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and so I’m sharing a photo from a Daily Kos diary published earlier this month, This is What Losing Your Kidneys Looks Like:

This is what losing your kidney function looks like.

This is what a diabetic who didn’t have health care for a year and a half looks like.

This is what our glorious ‘uniquely American’ system of health insurance looks like&hellip.

This is what not having health care for a year and a half when you’re diabetic and have high blood pressure looks like.

This is what our American health care system looks like. It is as broken as my kidneys.

I don’t want sympathy; I want single payer universal health care. I don’t want pity; I want single payer universal health care.

I want one class of people who have health care in this country: everybody. I want no more of this stratified system where it’s determined that Joe can have care but Susan can’t because she can’t pay.

I can’t even be fully naked with my partner, do you know that? The white belt you see is what I use to support my catheter, and I have seven of them. I wear one at all times unless I am in the shower, including to bed…

It is impossible to feel sexy when I have two liters or so of dialysis fluid in my abdomen, 100% of the time unless I’ve just been through a drain cycle, and my abdomenal walls have relaxed to accomodate it, making me look like I’m pregnant. I’ve been “pregnant” since January 15, 2008. I despair of ever getting the muscle tone back, and I do not seem to be able to with that fluid held internally.

Sen. Specter, you of all people should be loudly proclaiming your support for single player health care. After all, wasn’t it the taxpayers who paid for your Hodgkin's lymphoma treatment? I called your office and no one would tell me. I left a message, but no one has called me back for a week:

As soon as members of Congress are sworn in, they may participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). The program offers an assortment of health plans from which to choose, including fee-for-service, point-of-service, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). In addition, Congress members can also insure their spouses and their dependents.

Not only does Congress get to choose from a wide range of plans, but there’s no waiting period. Unlike many Americans who must struggle against precondition clauses or are even denied coverage because of those preconditions, Senators and Representatives are covered no matter what - effective immediately.

And here’s the best part. The government pays up to 75 percent of the premium. That government, of course, is funded by taxpayers, the same taxpayers who often cannot afford health care themselves.

That’s not just some website with an ax to grind: It’s confirmed by the US Office of Personnel Management:

The FEHB Handbook has additional information on how the Government’s share is calculated. For most employees, the Government contribution equals the lesser of

a) 72 percent of the overall weighted average; or

b) 75 percent of the total premium for the plan you select.

The amount you pay is the balance. That is, the difference between the total premium and the government contribution for your health plan. If you are enrolled in a health plan that has premiums above the average, the premium balance for you to pay will be higher.

Sen. Specter, if single-payer, government-provided, taxpayer-funded health care is good enough for you, shouldn’t it be good enough for the rest of us? I took a look for myself: Not a bad deal, my friend, especially if you’re only covering yourself.

Oh yes, I know, I know. We don’t want to force people to participate in something they don’t want or don’t think they need. Funny how that hasn’t been that much of an obstacle to the digital TV conversion: that bill was passed into law sometime in 2006, and gave us three years to convert to digital TV like it or not. Twenty years and no health care, but three years and you’d better have your fancy-schmancy new TV or you won’t be able to tune into the vast wasteland anymore. For God’s sake, will no one think of the children!?!

Senator, I don’t want to get all “big picture” on you, but thanks in no small part to your “leadership” over the past couple of decades, a lot of Americans are going to be needing something to offset our health care costs as we get older, which you as much as anyone knows are the leading causes of bankruptcy in the US. Not that that bothered you and your colleagues when you “reformed” bankruptcy in 2005, specifically rejecting amendments like the Corzine Amendment (”To preserve existing bankruptcy protections for individuals experiencing economic distress as caregivers to ill or disabled family members”), and both of the Kennedy Amendments (”To exempt debtors whose financial problems were caused by serious medical problems from means testing” and “To exempt debtors whose financial problems were caused by serious medical problems from means testing”). You voted in favor of the bill about a month after you were diagnosed with cancer: Maybe it’s time to make up for it?

Coupled with your lockstep votes with your former party members to dismantle just about every post-Depression regulation designed to keep Wall Street from collapsing again, you know just as well as I do that Americans’ nest eggs are getting smaller and smaller, our houses worth less and less.

We simply don’t have the cash to cover huge medical expenses as we get older.

So Sen. Specter, I want you to take a good look at the photo above. Take a good look: Think about what fighting a deadly disease has been like for you and then remember that not everyone’s blessed to make well over a hundred thousand dollars a year, including guaranteed coverage with no pre-existing conditions, no medical exams, and no denial of service.

From what I understand, Senator, 63 percent of Pennsylvania voters WANT you to face a primary. And another poll shows that, among Democrats who know both names, Sestak leads you 52 percent to 44 percent

Maybe it’s time to exercise some of that independence we keep hearing about. Senator, if you want my vote, you’re going to have to support a strong, robust public option for health care reform. Maybe something like the superlative care YOU get, paid for by the good people of Pennsylvania.

Brendan Skwire blogs at Brendan Calling.

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http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/Dear-Sen-Specter-How-About-Some-Health-Care-48094322.html