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That U.S. healthcare is bad for your health is something that is well-documented yet not widely known. Last year, researchers from Johns Hopkins University published the British Medical Journal article Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Yes, that is correct. The top three leading causes of death in the U.S. are (in order): 1) heart disease, 2) cancer, and 3) medical error—death resulting from medical/health care itself.
But lately it occurs to me that U.S. healthcare politics is bad for our collective health as well. Especially the current state of healthcare politics being bashed around by the U.S. Senate Republicans with their widely unpopular American Heath Care Act—now called the Better Care Reconciliation Act, but also referred to as Trumpcare. The latest estimates are that 22 million Americans would lose health insurance under the Republican Senate health bill.
Last night I attended the town hall meeting on health care by U.S. Senator from Washington Maria Cantwell, held at the University of Washington. It was her first town hall meeting in 17 years and was well-attended with a packed lecture hall of 600 or so people. The vast majority of audience members were older (than I am) white people, and from the questions they asked (and the occasional heckling), most were way left of center and perhaps even left of left. There were several social workers and mental health therapists who spoke about the increase in anxiety and depression among their clients/patients over the Republican move to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Talbots-wearing middle-aged white women spoke of their sons being affected by the current opioid epidemic (at least one of whom was introduced to opioids by a hospital stay), and about their young adult daughters getting IUDs placed by Planned Parenthood—not because they currently needed them, but because of their fears of losing access to birth control.
The questions and comments from participants of the town hall health care meeting were tightly controlled by a lottery system, with Dr. Paul Ramsey, CEO of UW Medicine and Dean of the UW School of Medicine serving as moderator. Senator Cantwell's responses were, well, predictable and politically-calculated, but then that is to be expected.
The most powerful part of the evening came from an African-American older man standing in the balcony area, holding a hand-made small sign, who spoke out passionately about how no one was talking about the Black Lives Matter issues, and said he was currently homeless, living on the streets near the University of Washington, and had a hard time getting access to mental health treatment. He spoke 'out of turn,' not having a lottery ticket number called. He was flanked by two police officers who, thankfully, allowed him to speak. Some audience members tried to silence the man, and at least one media/reporter in front of me took photographs of the man while he laughed.
Democracy is messy, and so is our healthcare (political) system.
Is health care a right or a privilege, and why? That is a question I asked a class of nursing students today. It's a good question for all of us to consider. And, as one of my students pointed out today, really pay attention to that 'why?' at the end. Whatever our political and other beliefs, we need to question our own assumptions.
Speak out. And, for those of you with summertime reflective writing time to be had, I highly recommend you write and submit a 40-400 prose piece on the topic of Healthcare On the Line to Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine.
