Health Care is an Economic Human Right

To learn more about Health Care as a Human Right Defined, click here.

Last November, the Women's Economic Agenda Project had an opportunity to attend the Health Care Now! Strategy Conference in St. Louis. WEAP brought along three activists from ally organizations to participate in the lectures and work shops about pushing the movement for health care for all forward. The following pieces are their thoughts about and inspired by the conference.

For a brief conference summary and video of WEAP Executive Director Ethel Long-Scotts lecture, please visit our events page.

________________________________________________________________________
With Our Education And Organizing We Will Get The Health Care We Need!
By Tracie Rice-Bailey

My name is Tracie Rice-Bailey. I am an outreach/inreach advocate for the poor and homeless. I am also a member of SafeGround Sacramento, a movement for and by the homeless to find a place free from police harassment, where we can live and reclaim our lives. I am also a member of the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee (SHOC).

Recently, I attended the “Health Care Now” conference in St. Louis, MO as a part of the California Poor People's Economic Human Right's Delegation. The conference was about our nation’s current health care system, and the fact this for-profit model does not provide health care for every American. The conference confirmed my long-held belief that ‘quality health care’ and the ‘profit model’ do not mix – how can they?

There were at least a dozen powerful and moving speakers discussing out nation’s flawed health care system. The most inspiring speech was given by Ethel Long-Scott, Executive Director of the Women’s Economic Agenda Project (WEAP), which received the only standing ovation of the conference. The conference held workshops, including one hosted by WEAP covering their numerous organizing tools such as ‘Teach-In’  and Leadership Training programs in Oakland.  While I have had first hand experience with the medical crisis in America it was through these Teach-Ins that I first became involved with the health reform movement.

The WEAP workshop put a face on the medical crises in our country by sharing stories of our current health care system. I shared my own story of finding Helen, an injured homeless woman, with a new walker, under the Interstate 5 bridge the same day she was released from the hospital after being hit by a motorcycle rider who died in the accident. She had been in the hospital in a coma and was very weak when I found her.

I also shared my story about the care I was given after being shot in a laundry mat. Initially, doctors were not going to operate at first, because the bullet was in a spot that could kill me or cause a severe stroke during surgery. Two days later I underwent the surgery. I was in the hospital for just five days before I returned home to an abandoned house. I now had a $180,000 hospital bill and another $70,000 ambulance bill. I had no insurance, so I never went back to the doctor even though my face was half paralyzed and I suffered severe nerve damage. I had to take out my own stitches and had to exercise my face until it regained movement. I still suffer severe nerve damage from the lack of proper health care at the time.

Take a look at the recent news. Suddenly, we are being conditioned to believe pap smears for women should be done every other year rather than the previous yearly recommendation. We are being told mammograms are not that important for women under forty. What the hell is going on? Is this a cost saving measure or a safety measure? What are we going to accept as the norm?

In one news cast I heard these guidelines may result in more women dying of breast cancer every year. On a later news cast the same day, these new guidelines have been labeled a ‘death sentence’ to thousands of American women. This is nothing short of obscene.

How can anyone promise and deliver quality health care and make a profit at the same time? When it comes to human life, the profit factor, the corporate greed of insurance companies, must end. It is the only way to ensure everyone has access to necessary quality health care.

The current ‘Public Option’ legislation is not an option.

Are we going to accept health care that is even less than what we have now? Our health care system is not the best in the world. Not only do we have many medical bankruptcies in this country, but we have poor people routinely released from hospitals after major trauma, released under bridges or on the sides of freeways – all of this because of our ‘for profit’ health care system.


We need a system that covers every single person on American soil. Just because a person is not born here, should not mean they should die here because our flawed government allows insurance companies to decide who gets treated and who gets ignored. I know many people who have been referred for treatment by a doctor and still cannot get treatment because the procedure is not approved by their insurance company. Is this a doctor denying the procedure, or is it an agent working for the insurance company? Who really has control over our health care?

With the current medical system, millions of Americans are not covered. Others with current health problems are denied health care insurance coverage or are losing what health care insurance they do have, simply because it is not profitable for the insurance company to keep them healthy.

The most important thing I came away from the conference with is this: We need a Single Payer Health Care system that will provide quality health care to every person in America - every person, not just some, but ALL. Health Care is a human right!

One of the most amazing people I had the honor to meet was an eight year old young man named Martin. This youngster actually took comprehensive notes during the conference and said he wanted to start a kids’ chapter this year and represent them at next year’s conference. I am looking forward to see this child’s involvement and youth participation next year, and for many years to come.

Tracie Rice-Bailey is a homeless advocate and activist for Safe Ground Sacramento.
________________________________________________________________________

The Heart of the Matter
By Mary Quintin

“You’ve gotta have heart, miles and miles of heart,” so the song goes. Perhaps we just need a change of heart. Not long ago I was on a flight back to San Jose from a health care conference. I was talking with a retired postal worker sitting next to me regarding the state of the country’s health care (or lack of). She told me that she had to have surgery on her knee. With Medicaid and other insurance she thought she would be OK, even though the bills were still coming in. I told her that health care was a human right, one of many that are denied the poor of this country. She said she had worked hard for her benefits, and if others wanted the same, they should get a job. When I reminded her of the unemployment figures, layoffs and cutbacks, she said to “blame it on the President”.

Indifference to our fellow human beings has become an epidemic! Would Jesus deny an undocumented worker dialysis because of inability to pay or lack of insurance?  It is by HIS stripes that we are healed, no matter how that healing comes about. Most us have kept ourselves separate from the needy and downtrodden of society, and placed the blame for their situation back on them. Now all you have to do is look next door. Behind almost every “For Sale” sign is a story, and most likely a sad one.

So what is to be done? It is time for a heart transplant. Being to be our brother’s keeper is not just a theory to ponder, but a call to action. Only God can change the world, but he is waiting on us. We are the extended arms of Jesus, and he gave us a voice. It is our duty to reach out to those like the woman I met on the plane. We need to let them know that what happens to others can indeed happen to us. We make the world better for us by making it better for others.

How do we do this? With truth, boldness and love. Our past passive behavior is not an option. We cannot depend on someone else or a group or government to bring about change. If we speak the truth, and make people hear us, we can plant seeds for tomorrow. But it all starts with a change of heart.

Mary Quintin is a member of the Christian Homeless Alliance Ministry (CHAM) in San Jose. CHAM is committed to empowering and advocating for the homeless, as well as opening the hearts and minds of the community towards homelessness. CHAM is also an affiliate of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign.