David Gregory convened a health care reform panel this morning on Meet the Press with Tom Daschle, Dick Armey, Rachel Maddow, and Sen. Tom Coburn. Coburn called the American health care system “one of the best in the world.” Daschle fought valiantly to get a word in about real policy. Armey shouted about “MoveOn.org” whenever he felt threatened. And Maddow did her best to dismantle Armey’s lies. It was frustrating to hear Coburn and Armey, who I’m sure both have very good health insurance, argue cooly about the cost of reform while completely ignoring the moral imperative we have to fix the system.
But the most frustrating part was listening to Coburn say on a national news program that there is “no indicator anywhere in this country that the quality of medicine has declined” one hour, and then reading about the health care services provided free by a Remote Area Medical field hospital to thousands in Los Angeles who can’t get them otherwise the next:
They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.
In the week that Britain’s National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an “evil and Orwellian” example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.
The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.
In the first two days, more than 1,500 men, women and children received free treatments worth $503,000 (£304,000). Thirty dentists pulled 471 teeth; 320 people were given standard issue spectacles; 80 had mammograms; dozens more had acupuncture, or saw kidney specialists. By the time the makeshift medical centre leaves town on Tuesday, staff expect to have dispensed $2m worth of treatments to 10,000 patients.
Health insurance company whistle-blower Wendell Potter told us about the life-changing experience he had after seeing a field hospital in action and a 60 Minutes segment showed the pain in the faces of the people who were turned away. These people whose only access to health care is through these randomly scheduled appearances of field hospitals in their community are not the faces of a “best in the world” system. Tom Coburn is, though. Lucky man.
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