HEALTH CARE
WELFARE AND GOVERNMENT

Sitting alone in the spotlessly clean examination room waiting for my eyes to dilate midway through a routine eye examination this morning, I experienced an emotional epiphany that must surely be what religious people refer to as “a calling.” Keep in mind that I am a seventy-five-year-old retired guy definitely too old to begin a new career, so we’re not talking here about a career change or even a Saint Paul-knocked-off-the-camel-on-the-Road-to-Wherever life altering visitation from Heaven nor am I contemplating some kind of religious vocation. Retreat to seminary wouldn’t do it for me. What happened in the doctor’s office was that it suddenly occurred to me that I was being treated (the appropriate word) as if I were a guest and not a patient. Dr. Grace Buenaventura, who received me into her office as if I were a long-time friend, went through the usual examination with the alphabet projected onto the wall. She put dilating drops in my eyes, brought me coffee, and left me alone in her quiet room to wait while the drops did their work. In the fifteen minutes that I waited, I thought first about how fortunate I was to be in such a good place with such competent caring professional people receiving absolutely everything I could possible need to remain healthy. Then my thoughts flipped from how lucky I am to a vision of billions of people in the world, millions in my own country, who lack basic professional health care when they need it. Don’t misunderstand: I don’t use the word vision in a religious, supernatural sense. I’m talking about a way of seeing what I should be doing about something that needs to be changed. The vision is not uniquely mine. Other people are already actively working to bring change. I will join them.

In my first week of teaching in the poorest section of San Diego I remember being shocked by high school students with teeth missing or poor eyesight with no corrective glasses or untreated but correctible physical abnormalities. As I got to know students and their families over the seven years that I taught there, the overwhelmingly obvious problem was poverty. I had come from a world where virtually everybody, adults and children, had more than enough of anything money can buy. Of course, there were folks with problems in that affluent world, but health care was not an issue for a single child, pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, at Francis Parker School, The Darrow School, or The Potomac School, places where I was headmaster for most of my career. Most of the families served by Gompers Secondary School in Southeast San Diego are lower-income working families or indigent families on one form or another of public assistance who often don’t have discretionary income for much of anything except basic food and shelter. Some had jobs with health insurance benefits, but if a worker was required to pay a substantial portion of the premium, the benefit could not be afforded.

I am acquainted with some comfortable people who dismiss the problem by saying “those people” often spend their money on cigarettes and drugs and alcohol and gambling and the list goes on; but that’s completely beside the point. Alcoholism and drug abuse and gambling and a bunch of other money-burning problems must be addressed in other ways. The problems growing out of lack of basic health care for citizens isn’t solved by despising reckless foolish spending by people whose families lack basic health care.

Our nation is coping with environmental disasters, a major economic recession, war on two fronts, along with a host of other societal problems; and the two major political parties in continual competition to get their members into elected public offices ranging from school board membership to the presidency of the country, take dramatically different approaches to virtually all of the country’s problems. Democrats are characterized by Republicans as tax-and-spend liberals; and Republicans are accused in electioneering speeches by Democrats of being more interested in the bottom line for business than they are in caring for people. Both parties spend far too much money vilifying the other. Even though I try to be objective, my political biases are blatantly obvious; so I’ll not struggle to find language that might make me seem less “liberal.” I can’t talk or write about an issue like health-care without pointing out contradictions in the political pitches of Republicans and affirming programs promoted by Democrats. For example, I must ask why it is that Republican politicians running for an office in government make a big point of their dislike of government. I can’t resist asking why the Republican candidates who insist that they want to serve in public office because they want to make American cities and the American nation stronger say they believe the solution to the problem, besides making government smaller, is to cut services for Americans. How can I not notice that Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray and Democratic Congresswoman Susan Davis both happily use the same public-funded highway system in San Diego County. I’m guessing that both of them occasionally drive out through Rosecrans Cemetery to take in the breath-taking view of ocean, bay, and city from Balboa National Monument which is funded through government by tax-paying citizens. As they drive back to the city, I wonder if they remember that the citizens buried in the national cemetery funded by taxpayers gave part of their lives to defending the American idea of freedom. Of course, they remember, and they praise veterans when they are on the political stump; but do they seriously think about how many veterans in America live in abject poverty and are unable to get the medical care that some of them need because public health-care programs are routinely underfunded. Do they remember when they look for places to save tax dollars by cutting education services that they are considering limiting or eliminating institutions which are the primary and basic programs for preparing young people to grow up to be productive, self-reliant citizens? Do they remember that veterans returning from service in far-away wars that they usually can financially afford to live and raise their families only in poverty pockets of American cities? Do they remember that the majority of those veterans from our volunteer army spent the “best” years of their youth serving us, safeguarding our idea of freedom, while the young people from our more affluent families were in college preparing for jobs that would help them avoid ever having to live in poor neighborhoods? How can they not understand what it does to a young life to take out the years between eighteen and twenty-two or twenty-six to “serve the country”? Of course, military service has “saved” many young people by getting them off the streets and giving them more disciplined living environments and experience than they would otherwise know in places like Southeast San Diego or Harlem or the nation capital’s Anacostia; but let’s focus on what happens when these young men and women return home after one- or two-year terms of service. I’m glad the G.I. Bill makes education possible for returning soldiers who can take advantage of it; but I can’t forget that many veterans are dealing with emotional, economic, and familial issues that make it very difficult for them to get plugged back into civilian life so they can take advantage of an opportunity to go back to school.

Let me get back to the reason for my journal writing today. In that quiet moment in the doctor’s office when I was enjoying the coffee and good medical care this morning, I determined that I will be an activist in efforts to get comprehensive health care for all Americans. I have no office and no power except my voice and energy and time. I vow that I won’t be sidetracked by the excuse that some people don’t try hard enough to help themselves. That’s not the issue. Whether those beggars standing at intersections around my city are lazy dead-beats or poor, unfortunate people who are dealing with unavoidable personal misfortune is not the issue. Whether or not Canadians or the Dutch or French people like their “socialized” health care programs is not the issue. There are things I can do besides pointing out that Canadians and people from Holland and France whom I know actually like their health care programs and wouldn’t trade it for the American way. I will actively support organizations like Planned Parenthood, Father Joe’s Village, Habitat for Humanity, The Human Dignity Foundation, and the Red Cross; and I will actively support and campaign for politicians who pledge to work for a comprehensive health care program for all Americans.