Ron du Bois: The Affordable Care Act will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans.
Dear Gov. Fallin,
I have long been an advocate of universal health care funded through public taxation similar to that of every other industrialized nation. I have long wondered why most Americans oppose a similar system since keeping everyone healthy saves a great deal of money.
Other nations put health and hygiene at the top of the list of necessities of civilized life. Yet the American mindset is stuck on the backward notion that if you cannot afford it you don't deserve it.
Recently I was pleased to discover support for my position in a book written by Chic Damback, "Exhaust the Limits."
Chic is one of our own, a graduate of Oklahoma State University. He played football for OSU. He served as president of the National Peace Corps Association, was a national champion athlete and Olympic games official.
He is an international traveler with friends all over the world, as well as an award-winning public speaker. His son was born with serious kidney problems.
He writes :
"As for the insurance industry and the U.S. health system I have nothing but contempt. I criticize the system, not the doctors, nurses and technicians. They do marvelous work. Not perfect, mind you, but their skills produce miracles. The insurance industry, on the other hand, left us nearly destitute, and they have made Kay's (Chic's wife) life miserable. They refuse to pay bills that are obviously appropriate, and they make her fight over details. They waste time and impose emotional stress at every opportunity.
"Our friends in other countries take pity on us for living in the U.S. with our miserable healthcare financing system. They are right. Our system is pitiful. I cannot understand why Congress refuses to make Medicare universal. It works, and it costs far, far less than the current dreadful system. Finally, in 2010, we have modest reform in the system. It may protect against the problems we encountered, and it will assure Kai access to insurance when he is on his own. That relieves one of my greatest concerns. The reform doesn't go as far as I would wish, but I'm pleased to see some progress."
In our "pay-or-die" system I lost my son to leukemia.
In Canada, life-saving treatment would have been provided without ever receiving a bill. That doesn't mean treatment is "free." It means that Canadians are willing to pay for the health care of their neighbors from birth to death through a system of taxation.
If you ask them "Why?" the great majority would answer, "Because I think it makes for a stronger nation."
"Obamacare," though deeply flawed, is still a step in the right direction. Why are Americans irrational about adopting a health-care system similar to that of every other industrialized nation?
It would be well worthwhile to visit Canada for a few months to compare their humanistic system with ours - the cruelest and most expensive in the world.
My son's life would have been saved and his gifts to Oklahoma as a medical doctor realized.
I speculate the opposition to paying for "your neighbor's health care" is due to a history of "rugged individualism" in which death was accepted as part of a frontier society.
In today's world every advanced nation in the world with the sole exception to the U.S. recognizes health care as a birthright. Our pioneering history and attitudes cast tremendous power over our minds. We reject what every other nation has - namely health care for all paid for through public taxation.
I hope you will take these comments into consideration. Fear, panic, and "gaslighting" rule the minds of so many. Continuing a failed policy hobbled by past notions benefits no one. Despite its flaws, the Affordable Care Act will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans.
Ron du Bois, Stillwater, is a retired Oklahoma State University professor and co-founder of Oklahomans for Universal Health Care.
Reader Forum
The Nov. 28, 2008, Tulsa World published my Readers Forum piece, "Antietam," in which I reported on a visit my then-8-year-old grandson, Stevie, and I made to Antietam battlefield in rural Maryland.
Obesity is common, serious and costly.
