| From the Villa ge of Brook ly n |
OUR TIME PRESS THE L OCAL PAPER WITH THE G LOBAL VIEW
| VOL. 21 NO. 26
Since 1996
June 29 – July 5, 2017 |
People Rescuing Affordable Care from GOP’s State of Emergency
Nation’s Health at Risk Excerpted from “How the Senate’s Health-Care Bill Threatens the Nation’s Health” by Atul Gawande appearing in this week's New Yorker magazine, June 26, 2017 When more people get health-insurance
Exclusive to Our Time Press: Q & A with Acting Kings County DA Eric Gonzalez. Page 11
coverage, they get more incremental care, which leads to numerous health benefits. The Senate health-care bill aims to obstruct that access. To understand how the Senate
clear evidence that people who get sufficient incremental care enjoy better prevention, earlier diagnosis and management of urgent conditions, better control of chronic illnesses, and longer life spans.” Health Care pages 3, 6, 7, 8.
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T ADA Eric Gonzalez giving remarks at BAM's annual celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Page 11 Photo credit: Elena Olivo
Republicans’ health-care bill would affect people’s actual health, the first thing you have to understand is that incremental care—regular, ongoing care as opposed to heroic, emergency care—is the greatest source of value in modern medicine. There is
Health Care’s Three Adversaries
By David Mark Greaves
he health care debacle in Washington is because the people are fighting not one, but three adversaries-- the insurance industry, those who cater to the rich and the legacy of slavery. Universal Health Care, Medicare for All or single-payer, however you want to call it, is violently objected to by the insurance industry. Because then our health dollars would not be providing the industry profits and paying for all the duplicated CEOs, area managers and their offices. It’s fought “tooth and nail” by the super-profitable pharmaceutical industry, because they don’t want the government to shop overseas or in Canada for less expensive prescription drugs. And they certainly don’t like negotiating their pricings. The watchdog group, Public Citizen, reported that pharmaceutical corporations collectively spent more than $150 million
lobbying Congress in 2016 and opensecrets. org adds that the insurance industry spent over $147 million in the same year. In a polite society, these dollars are called campaign contributions or issue support, however, in less genteel circles it is known as “grease”, “doing the right thing” or bribery if you can prove it. What kind of mentality would think it is a good thing to take money from the sick and poor and elderly to give to the already wealthy? A slaveholder would do it without a second thought. The United States is the only country in the industrialized world without a national health program, and the only country built with slavery in its DNA. In her dissertation on health care and the slave, “Unfit for Bondage: Disability and African-American Slavery in the United States, 1800-1860”, Dea Hadley writes, “Basically, if they were functional enough to be of any use to the plantation, they were given the tasks they could manage even if
those tasks were somewhat small. They were likely treated somewhat like children on the plantation. If they were not useful at all or were a liability, they probably were disabled to the point where their lifespan would naturally be short, whether by illness, lack of the ability to take care of themselves, or accidental death”. In short, when they were of no more use, people were left to die. This was the attitude of the “Planter class” as W.E.B. DuBois called them, and it is the attitude embodied in Republican proposals that the Congressional Budget Office says will force 22 million to go without insurance. People are fighting back. More and more are finding themselves being relegated to our world, “where their lifespans would naturally be short”, and they don’t like it. The ranks of the proponents for Universal Health Care will continue to grow ➔➔ Continued on page 9