Here’s To Your Health

As I’ve recently switched jobs, I’m currently in the process of figuring out my healthcare situation. I found myself in need of a flu shot, so, sans regular doctor, I headed over to the Public Health Department. Upon registering, I noticed a prominent sign asking for a donation in addition to the price of the visit. The rationale is that the charge is not enough to cover the cost of services. I ran through my standard donation checklist:

1) Is it a good cause?
2) Am I gainfully employed?
3) Am I part of a captive audience?

After determining that I had a 100% yes verdict, I agreed to donate the suggested 15% of my total bill. The receptionist took out an abacus calculator, and pronounced my contribution $4.20. I blinked, ascertained that this was correct, and told her to round it up to $10.

I know that every little bit counts, but honestly? What kind of country are we living in if the local government-run healthcare provider must ask for donations that roughly compare to the cost of a Big Mac? Are they supplementing these donations by panhandling? Selling discarded stuff on eBay? Peddling Mary Kay products on slow days?

Why is the public health department just scraping by? Why is an agency that serves mostly low income clients forced to resort to a donation system? Why am I so often reminded of how “lucky” I am to have health insurance? Call me crazy, but it seems to me that we shouldn’t require people to pay for health care in the first place. If we can’t manage this, is it really a better system to knock off a few bucks and guilt people into paying the rest? Sure, it’s possible to refuse. However, many people are not comfortable accepting what appears to be charity. A sign announcing that the cost of a visit won’t allow the agency to break even, and insinuating that this is at least theoretically the client’s problem, falls into that category.

I’m not suggesting that public health increase prices to cover the real cost of services, and I know this is the only way to get rid of the donation sign. My point is simply that there’s something wrong with a system that requires the sign in the first place. Healthcare is almost universally recognized as a human right, not a luxury requiring charitable contributions from poor people. Yeah — almost.

Comments (3)

Filed under Blogicize the Revolution

3 Responses So Far
  1. 1

    Safety Neal said,

    December 8, 2007 @ 1:54 pm

    I totally agree with you that health care should be considered a fundamental human right and provided to everyone.

    But we live in a redneck nation where reason and humanity are subsidiary to ideology and machismo.

  2. 2

    Debit said,

    August 22, 2010 @ 9:09 pm

    A first time comment in this site.

    I think the ‘healthcare debate’ (actually it was not a debate, bot rather something different!A) that has taken place last year should be instructive:

    1. The American public is intellectually and emotionally not mature enough to delve into nuts and bolts of healthcare. The most embarrassing example: A bunch of angry elderly were protesting ‘Government, keep your hands off of my Medicare!’. However, these dimwits do not even understand how Medicare is even funded!

    2. Another outrage was ‘death panel’. We actually have ‘death panel’ everywhere, ranging from city planners (where to install signal lights?) to military headquarters (how many body armors and armored trucks should be sent to Unit X?). An academic term would be risk analysis. Again, this merely reflects how immature the American public has been.

    3. What I sense

  3. 3

    Debit said,

    August 22, 2010 @ 9:17 pm

    Oops, I accidentally pressed a wrong button and my comment got posted prematurely.

    3. What I sense is that there has been a widespread attempt to obfuscate important public issues by resorting to cheap labels, anger, resentment, and free-market ideology. The free-market thingie: IMHO, no such thing as free-market. Instead, the best analogy of our marketplace: Whose dice are loaded more than others?

    4. Another very funny recent historical trend towards national healthcare policies: Late-comers like Taiwan, Switzerland, and South Korea have not bothered to adopt American model. (There is actually a good documentary on this archived somewhere in PBS.org.)

Say your words