I just got an e-mail from Amnesty International about maternal health care (or lack thereof) in Sierra Leone. They described a woman who had just given birth presumably without medical attention, and died on the way to the hospital in a taxi her family and friends had scraped $40 together to pay for.
"The fear of what it would have cost prevented her from seeking the medical attention that she really needed," said the woman's sister.
Clearly, the U.S. and Sierra Leone are very different in terms of the quality of life of their respective residents, and so many other things. But in this way, we are not so different, especially the poor of both countries.
That simply should not be the case.
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Peterson Toscano
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Comments
When have you ever heard of this happening in America? Please show me a case like this. Better yet show me a thousand because one in our system would be an anomaly. If she lived in America and was even close to as poor as she was in Sierra Leon she would have full coverage through medicaid. Yes, your tax dollars would have stepped up and provided her with the best health care in the world.
That woman lived in an economy that oppresses it's people because of graft and corruption and a sick and failed tribal (it takes a village) system. We live in a country where there is a hospital on every corner. I live in a small blue collar town of 30,000 in rural AZ and we have 2 hospitals and numerous other urgent care facilities.
You have drunk the Kool-aid and choose to believe the worst to support your disdain for the right. Self deception is the worst kind. How sad.
But it is true that people in America who don't have insurance through their jobs, can't afford to purchase it for themselves, but aren't dirt poor enough to receive Medicaid coverage DO delay seeking treatment even when they know something is wrong. And my tax dollars, and insurance premiums, pay more for their expensive emergency room surgeries and interventions than they would if these people got preventive care or earlier intervention. The quote in the e-mail is the similarity I was referring to, not the isolation from hospitals or the lack of sanitation and social services due to corruption and decades of civil war.
I also don't recall saying anything about "the right" in this post--are you even responding to something I wrote? Doesn't look that way. Republicans have come up with a few good ideas for health reform, to their credit, and I don't recall vilifying anyone in this post. Please save your reactionary screeds for someone who is actually saying something that would relate to what you just wrote.