Dignitude
Friday, July 17 2009
I have LOTS to write about from this morning’s “Putting Patients First” – I’ll probably milk this in posts through next week. Let me just say right now that I am glad and grateful it happened, even if I still regret the absence of meaningful patient participation. But hey – the LaRouche people were there to connect Medicare to the Holocaust – “don’t you see; that’s how it started!” – and that was a party all by itself.
Unfortunately, the rightward tilt of the event was as I feared. Even before it began, a video screen was flashing quotes about the dangers of government-run health care. Congressman Ryan and Robert Goldberg pushed hard, too, for an anti-government, pro-markets view of health care. Goldberg in fact introduced himself with a video of Canadians and Britons decrying their country’s health system – not exactly a study in moderation. He was also the least coherent, least factual of the participants, so he’ll get his own post later.
I am pleased to report that the panelists – the doc- and nurse- bloggers – were much more moderate, even if I might still put them to the right of center on the issue. Several of the questions from the moderator (Rea Blakely – it’s not clear whether she wrote them or someone else did) were loaded in favor of right-wing talking points; the panelists pushed back most of those questions, argued against the premises, and offered more balance in their answers than the questions wanted to admit. So that was good. And afterwards, I had nice chats with several panelists and a couple other patient bloggers. All of which will be recap’d in next week’s posts.
I want to use the rest of this post to point out something very specific that got under my skin, and it was something Paul Ryan said. I wish I had written it down better, but the gist was that free markets are a way to give patients their dignity back, and patients don’t have any dignity in government-run systems.
Bullshit. The free market can’t give me dignity – can’t restore or renew my dignity – any more than the government can take it away. I can’t buy dignity – though I include Ms. Hilton’s photo because she, among many, seems determined to sell hers at any cost. Government can neither confiscate my dignity – nor provide it.
I have dignity because I am a human being, though it sometimes doesn’t feel that way (hospital gowns leap to mind). Furthermore, I hold as an essential moral and ethical principle that all human beings have dignity – intrinsically, as human beings. We need no other source than our humanity, and for that reason our dignity is no more fungible, expendable, or exhaustible than our genetic make-up.
The question is, how do we build a health care system that recognizes the basic dignity of every human being? That’s a really tough question, especially in this country – but Congressman Ryan never got anywhere near a reasonable answer.
Hi Duncan
I read with interest the debate currently underway in the USA regarding health responsibilities and health insurance. I am in Australia and all the more appreciate the Medicare safety net here after reading many USA patients’ blogs over recent weeks. It’s a long way from a perfect system here and there are definite pushes to try to erode the health care protection here by replacing it with pharmaceutical commerce but nothing like what you guys in the USA must contend with.
I notice it is the 60th anniversary this year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – I am not well enough versed in it to know whether the US of A is a signatory to it (one would hope so but…). To me Articles 22 and 25 get to the heart of why it is not appropriate for health responsibilities be left to the vagaries of ‘market forces’.
Article 22.
* Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 25.
* (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
All the best with your advocacy and lobbying.
Every human being has inherent dignity, the key is to find a health care system that recognizes the dignity that already exists. The health care system does not bestow it.
Yes!
: )