Give me your poor huddled masses

“Give me your poor huddled masses yearning to be free.”

How can a country as wealthy and prosperous as the United States of America leave forty-four milion of its citizens without access to proper medical care? When we meet and speak with Europeans and Canadians, while traveling, we are embarassed for our country when the topic of health care comes up. There is an implied criticism in their comments, however unintended, about our attitude towards health care. In this area, many of them feel like they are talking to us as poor benighted barbaraians who have just discovered civilization.

My wife and I pay $13,000 a year for our medical coverage and consider ourselves fortunate to be able to participate in a comprehensive medical plan. There are those unfortunate souls who are willing to pay these steep rates, but are refused coverage because they have an “existing condition.” Go figure that one out. They can’t get medical coverage vecause they are sick!

Many of the United States Congressmen and Senators, who rail the loudest about “socialized medicine” and all of the other emotional propaganda they opine, have themselves the best health care that money can buy, and all of it at public expense. It is easier to argue against inclusion when you and your family are safely covered, especially when others pay for it I guess.
When you examine the rolls of the lepers, for that is what the uninsured are treated like, you find that most of them are not the lowest end of the socio economic spectrum. They are indeed the next few rungs up, the working poor. The poorest among us are covered by public assistance, medicaid and medicare. Yet those who are trying to break the cycle of poverty, and lift themselves up the economic ladder, are denied medical coverage. Where is the logic in that? Even the most conservative among us must realize that if we help people up the ladder, and make them tax paying citizens and property owners, they will be less of a burden on the system. And even beyond that, is a revered concept that all of us learned as Children, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

This ability to raise one self up in society by hard work is a deeply held American ideal. It has also always been one of our great traditions that those who “have made it” reach down and lend a hand to those behind us, so that they too might get a leg up on the ladder. Generations of immingrant Americans, were educated, trained to make a living and indeed became the pride of a growing America.

Given the cost of universal health care, there has to be much more public dialogue on the subject to weigh its implications on society and figure out an equitable approach that encompasses the need of all of our citizens. We also need an end to the contentious propaganda wars that rage across the pages and monitors of the media daily.

I don’t have the answers to this dilemna. I suspect few individuals do. I do think that any problem that we face as Americans is solveable if we are fair minded and charitable in our approach to the solutions. Most of us were raised without much in the way of material things. We all know what hard times are like. We live in a land that reveres fairness and equality in all things. Maybe we ought to think more about who we are as a society and from whence we have come.

“Give me your poor hudled masses yearning to be free” is etched on the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York City’s Harbor. It is a signpost of who and what we are as a nation. Maybe we ought to remember these stirring words when we frame our future debates on the subjects of health care and other means of improving our society for all of it’s citizens.
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Joseph Xavier Martin