Fulfillment, Self Expression and Compassion

The subjects of this article are cherished goals. What could be more rewarding than a life fulfilled, or expressing ones deepest felt emotions and thoughts? The problem is; one person's fulfillment might be another's tragedy.

Take for example the dream of home ownership. A young woman, nobody special, dreams her little girl dreams of her own home someday, and together, she and her husband work hard and honestly at jobs that pay hourly wages, and save until they finally move into the home of their dreams. Happy years go by, and after raising her family and finally being able to relax a little; an illness surprises her.

The illness is serious, the medications expensive, and her healthcare provider, or an employee of the healthcare provider interested only in bottom line considerations, finds a loophole causing the couple to lose their insurance. The insurance wasn't great, but they weren't aware of that, and it was all that they could afford. They thought they were covered.
The healthcare provider had taken all the premiums and then skipped out, fulfilling its obligation to its stockholders. This was the only consideration, because stockholders provide the life-blood; the capital and keep the company in business, while patients do nothing but ruin the bottom line with their costs.

The pharmaceutical companies develop and distribute drugs that save lives. In order to keep stockholders happy, new drugs are marketed at exorbitant prices, far in excess of costs in order to cover developmental expense. Since the new drugs save lives, the prices are somehow paid, and gratefully, and the drug companies make great profits for their stockholders. Their salespeople are paid commissions by the number of prescriptions that a doctor writes for their particular drug, and the salespeople fulfill their obligations to the company in this way. It's kind of a game for them, and fortunately, for the sales reps, the prescription drugs are advertised heavily on TV, which is very expensive and adds to the drug's cost, but creates a consumer demand as well.

But our young woman, who is now old, has no choice except to put her cherished home on the market in order to pay off her medical bills, but even the sale of the house is not enough; the bills are close to a million dollars. Her husband goes back to work in order to get coverage again, but with a pre-existing condition, no coverage is available. And the employer justifies the low wages and poor working conditions by saying that if the company is not profitable, the stockholders will bail out, and therefore the employees must sacrifice.

The couple wants to express their disillusionment with a system that allows this to happen. Nowhere else in the industrialized world can this happen, this degradation of honest hardworking people because they have become ill. Those in power will say that this is the system, love it or go live somewhere else, leaving her with no avenue to express her disappointment. No one will listen. She sees now that she must be either wealthy or dirt poor to be taken care of by her system. Otherwise, it is foolish for the average person to work hard and save for old age, because it is only taken away, or so she now believes.

She wants to say that our healthcare system is broken, that it is becoming a system only available to the wealthy in his country, and to the rich around the world who come here for treatment. She wants to say that changes must be made. She wants her congressional representatives to pass laws that prohibit discrimination based on health history; she couldn't help it that she became ill. No more exclusions or pre-existing conditions. No qualifications, no maximum benefits, no "We don't cover aids or cancer because that would hurt our bottom line." She wants everyone to pay the same, and for everyone to receive the same coverage - no exclusions – rich or poor. No more loopholes that destroy lives.

Just as we all pay into our auto insurance and our social security fund, she wants everyone to pay into the healthcare system, even if they are young and don't believe that they will become ill, because you never know when illness or an accident will happen. That would be the only fair way to equal out costs. Now a few pay for the others who use the system, which then uses them.

She believes that the practice of charging inflated prices in the United States for drugs, healthcare, and all medical expenses including physicians, just because the system is set up to protect them and not the average person, is wrong. While these costs in the rest of the world, for example Canada, the UK, even Cuba are a fraction of what we pay.

And she believes that if the healthcare companies, healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies can't see their way to developing a system that's fair, then laws should be passed. And if the laws cause the healthcare and insurance companies to lose their stockholders, then the government should take over, just like they run the military and the VA hospital system. The government is us, she believes, not a machine, and when we get together for a common purpose, such as compassionate healthcare, great things can happen for the common person. If we can't sacrifice profits for the ill, where are we headed? She thinks.

She knows as well that Congress has been looting her husband's social security trust fund for years. Food and gasoline have gone up 30% for her, while social security benefits have gone up 2%, although the government will tell her that inflation is not a concern. Like drunken sailors, the money has been spent paying off our debts that we have made to the rest of the world in order for us to be Number One! Number One in what? Bombs? But she cannot see where she is number one at all - her life has become a tragedy.

And she can't help wonder why – or where compassion lies. What are we becoming? She asks. n