CMA Health Policy Blog

A Rabbi Writes About Health Care Reform – For All

August 31, 2009 at 4:06 pm Judith Stein Leave a comment

“In an opinion piece recently printed [in my local paper], Newt Gingrich decried the possibility of rationing as a result of health care reform.  What he fails to understand or admit is that there already is rationing in our current system.  Tens of millions of Americans are rationed out of access to healthcare by their lack of income, by their employment status, or by “pre-existing conditions.”  We also already have “death panels.”  They’re the insurance company bureaucrats that decide to cut off cancer treatments because, for example, the patient neglected to report pre-existing acne.  (That really happened!)

Our national fear and greed (and the health care system they’ve saddled us with) are literally killing us.  According to Census Bureau and CIA data, the United States has the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality of any Western, industrialized country except Portugal.  Let’s put that fear and greed aside and commit, as all our faith-traditions command, to care for each other.  Let’s change the system so that every American has access to the preventive and curative care that our wealth and scientific achievement should make possible.”

Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz   – Willimantic, CT

Entry filed under: Health Care Reform, Public vs. Private Health Coverage.