Bridging the health-care gap

Need a doctor? Need to go to a hospital? Better answer this question first: Do you have health insurance?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, for 44 million Americans — 8.5 million of them children — the answer is no. That includes 6.4 million Californians, 15 percent of whom are under age 18. The picture is not much better for the millions more whose coverage is grossly inadequate.

As dire as these statistics are, numbers alone cannot paint the whole picture of the devastating consequences our broken health-care system has on ordinary Americans. Lisa Scott, a working mother from Greenville, Iowa, can heartbreakingly describe it for you: Her uninsured daughter Janelle died in 2001 at the age of 18, the exact cause of death unknown. Following a year of chest pains and blackouts, doctors refused to perform a chest X-ray because Janelle, who had just become engaged to be married, lacked health coverage and could not afford to pay the expenses out of pocket.

Lisa has seen her deceased daughter’s medical charts, with the jot in the margin noting she was uninsured — which makes Lisa certain that if Janelle had coverage: "She would still be alive today because the doctors would have run every possible test to properly diagnose and treat her."

Lisa is now transforming her grief into action by helping to build a movement to achieve quality, affordable health care for all. She is in San Francisco this week to share her story for the first time with labor and community groups uniting to help bridge the health-care gap. She will be among the tens of thousands of people — those who have health insurance and those who don’t, those who fear losing coverage and those who have too little — who are marching across bridges nationwide Saturday as part of a day of action to call for quality, affordable health care for all. Their message to our leaders in Washington is simple: In the richest country in the world, every man, woman and child should have quality, affordable health care.

This is a crisis that touches the lives of every American, whether we have health care or not. After all, with premiums and prescription drug costs rising higher every year, even those of us lucky enough to have coverage worry constantly about whether we, too, will join the ranks of the uninsured because we simply can’t keep up. Neither is it a problem limited to the poor and unemployed: Eighty percent of those who lack insurance come from working families, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Kaiser group findings also reveal that under President Bush, 4 million Americans lost their health-insurance, average health-care costs have gone up nearly 50 percent and premiums have gone up more than three times faster than average wages. With costs soaring and coverage dropping, no one is immune from becoming uninsured, making it more likely that those who lack coverage or have too little will forgo necessary medical treatment. Or, as in the case of Janelle Scott, be turned away altogether.

It’s a national problem. We need a national solution. It’s going to take a national day of action to help achieve it. Saturday, look for thousands of engaged voters on the sidewalks of the Golden Gate Bridge who have pledged to make health care a priority by voting only for politicians who will do something to solve the health-care crisis. Look for Lisa Scott, and commit to do the same.

Health insurance may be a prerequisite for care, but there’s no reason why everyone can’t have access to it. The most important question anyone should be asked when they need to see a doctor is "Where does it hurt?"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/18/EDGLD7816F1.DTL