In Almeda County, a private hospital turned away a woman in labor because thehospital’s computer showed that she didn’t have insurance. Hours later, her babywas born dead in a county hospital. In San Bernardino, a hospital surgeon sent apatient who had been stabbed in the heart to a county medical center afterexamining him and declaring his condition stable. The patient arrived at thecounty medical center dying, he suffered a cardiac arrest, and died.
These twohospitals shifted these patients to county facilities not for medical reasons,but for economic ones — the receiving hospitals feared they wouldn’t be paidfor treating the patient. What’s right? People or profit? Should there bedeath or tragedy at the result of poverty and high health care costs, or shoulda business such as a hospital lose millions everyday to give health care tothose who can’t afford it?
An average person like me would feel for the personwho could not afford sufficient health insurance, and as in the case above, thebaby inside that mother’s womb didn’t choose its financial situation, or itsparents. That baby didn’t ask to be born, and it wasn’t given a chance to live.
It wasn’t necessarily the doctors fault, and it wasn’t even his or her decision,because of business. Business has moved to the heart of health care, a placeonce relatively cushioned from the pursuit of profit that drives the rest of theU.S. economy. Throughout the history of the United States, medical institutionshave largely been non-profit establishments existing primarily to serve thecommunity.But during the past 20 years, the number of for-profit health carefacilities has grown at an exceeding rate.
I think that a society as wealthy as ours has a moral obligation to meet thebasic needs of all of its members. I believe that every American, rich or poor,should have access to the health care he or she needs, but the rising costs ofcare and a growing unwillingness of insurance companies to cover these costs,along with government spending in other areas, have almost totally restrictedaccess to health care for the poor, the aged, and those with tragic healthproblems. I pointed out earlier that an unborn child shouldn’t be turned downfor health care, but neither should a man with a knife through his heart. It isgetting harder and harder for the aged and those with tragic health problemsthat can afford health insurance, to even get insured.
Take an AIDS patient forexample, as of right now, there is no cure and he is going to die. But how canhe pay for the drugs and treatment to prolong his life without sufficient healthcare that will cover him when he’s healthy, and also when he’s dying. There aremillions of cases, the boy who needs a new heart, the elderly man with a brokenhip, or how about a girl playing hopscotch that was a victim of a drive byshooting. I believe the U.S. has got to find a system where people will have achance and a choice to get the health care they deserve.
Most people don’tdeserve to die, and most doctors don’t deserve to make such a high profit fromtheir services. If the services of doctors of any type become scarce, we as asociety will be forced to pay higher prices for them, but these services are notscarce, the money people have to pay for them is. The commercialization ofmedicine will lead to the abandonment of certain virtues and ideals that arenecessary to a moral community. We have to have a sense of caring, compassion,and charity toward those that have had less of a chance to succeed.
If you putyourself in the shoes of the people in the cases I’ve mentioned, you’d want tojump out of them as soon as you could. I believe that this case comes rightdown to human life and greed. I believe our society has marked the poor classas unneeded and worthless. Why spend money on someone if they don’t help youout in some way? The people who think this way obviously don’t think of thesepeople as being human beings, having feelings, wants, and in this case needs.
When people need medical treatment to save their life, who they are, should notbe important. I think that some doctors see so much of life and death from aphysical standpoint, that the emotions of these people fade to an invisiblelining. That invisible lining is their life. That lining is what makes ushuman.
Proponents of for-profit enterprise in health care support their position bymaintaining that all persons have a basic right to freedom and thus a right touse their property in ways they freely choose. They argue that owners of for-profits have no special obligation to provide free services to the poor. Theythink that it is being wrongly assumed that for-profits impose a burden on non-profits by not taking the costs of caring for the poor. They say that they,unlike non-profit, pay taxes, and in doing so, can be said to pay their share inserving the poor through tax-supported public programs.
For-profit proponentsalso would like to argue the health care is a lot like food, clothing andshelter. Just as these “basic needs” are sold on the market and distributedaccording to ability to pay, so too should health care. They think that if somecannot afford to pay for such basic needs, it is up to the government orvoluntary agencies to see that they secure it. I believe that for-profithospitals have gone to the extreme with their rules and regulations. They dohave an obligation just as the rest of the tax payers of this country to carefor the less fortunate.
A person can get by with minimal food, clothing andshelter, but they can’t get away with minimal or no health care in their timesof trouble. The government should work on coming up with a solution to thisissue, but they should first focus on the individual businesses like the for-profit hospitals that are giving up human life for money. So, I’m asking you,how much are you worth?How much is your life and all that comes with it,worth?How much is a human life worth? Ten dollars, maybe even a hundred? Ofcourse you can’t answer this question.
It is impossible and totally unethicalto place a cost or dollar amount on a human life. If you take that body away,you are still left with a soul, or what that soul once was. Nothing can replaceit, and a doctor or business men or women, have no right to stop care for aninjured person because of their financial status. Medical businesses can’t turnpeople into money. In this case, a loss of money is a gain of life, and a fearof a loss of money is a total loss of life, morals, and humanity. Business
