The system is broken

I am privileged.

This morning, I picked up the phone, called my doctor's office, and made an appointment to see a doctor. I've been feeling icky for 4 or 5 days with a sore throat that's gotten progressively worse, a headache, alternating fever and chills -- all the good stuff. I suspected strep. Nothing major, in the grand scheme of things. I'll definitely live.

But that's not the point. The point is, I'm sick, so I picked up the phone, called my doctor's office, and made an appointment. At the designated time, I went to my doctor's office, paid my $15 co-pay, and got the care I needed.

At that moment, I found myself thinking about the 46 million people in this country who don't have that privilege.

46 million -- that's a lot of people. That's about 1 in 6. (About 10 million of them are children. Are we okay with that?) Statistics say these numbers are growing. Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

The United Methodist Social Principles say that "health care is a basic human right." I totally agree: not a privilege for some, but a basic human right for all. We decided a long time ago that every child deserves a free public education. When are we going to decide that every person deserves health care when they're sick?

One more question: Who in their right mind really believes that providing a $5,000 tax credit and then deregulating the health insurance system so we can all find our own health insurance is going to solve the problem? The sources I trust predict that scenario will quickly result in increasing numbers of uninsured.

Something is terribly, terribly wrong, and it's time to fix the problems. Whatever we do, let's not make them worse.