I have been thinking much lately on the concept of health care in the US, and where we stand on the issue as a nation. What obligation do we really have to one another? What role should our government play in taking care of its citizens? What responsibility do we have as more than just Americans to take care of one another? What role do we have as human beings to make sure we all have food, decent shelter, and access to health care?

Right now, somewhere in this country, someone is trying to make the decision as to whether they can afford to have an operation or procedure that would save their life, or the life of a loved one. Somewhere out there someone is being denied care or medication because life's events have given them a preexisting condition. Some people are even born with a preexisting condition which denies them care for a lifetime (a lifetime often cut short.) Since when is affordability a condition of life?

Our nation's poor are accused of wrecking the health care system by taking advantage of emergency room care. They are accused of using ambulatory services to get a sick child to the hospital for perceived minor illness. Has anyone of us ask what we would do if our child, spouse, brother, sister, mother or father was sick and needed care? Would you sit and watch a loved one suffer because you did not have the money to see a doctor? Would you not do anything to ease the sickness and suffering of someone you loved? What if you had no car, no access to mass transit, would you call for help? Why is it when someone is labeled poor their life and the lives of their loved ones is considered too high a price to pay. Does labeling them poor, or immigrants deny them of their humanity? Is it easier to blame the poor for their lot in life, to say they deserve to be where they are because they just did not work hard enough?


No one asks to be poor, no one wakes up in the morning and says, " I really hope I can be poor today." When is the last time you talked to someone about their goals, hopes and dreams, and they answered, " I wish to be poor, I hope to not be able to provide food, clothing, shelter or medical care for myself and my family?" I have never heard, " I have always dreamed of living in squalor, and imagined watching my children cry hungry every night before retiring to floor to sleep for the night.

Kennedy asked "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country." Isn't it time we start asking what our country has done for us, what services our tax dollars are paying for. Isn't it time to ask why we have poverty in this nation, why children are starving, why the sick cannot get the care they need? It is not because there is a lack of food, medicine or money!

Color, race, ethnicity, occupation should be be differences we celebrate among each other, not standards to dictate someone's lot in life. For all the differences among us, for all the unique characteristics we all embrace, they are a cause for celebration, but are turned into rallying calls to label someone as less. How is one human being less then another, how is someone's culture or race used as a valuation for their worth as a human being?

We have placed labels on people so we do not have to look at them as real human beings, we hold accountable those who have no means to support themselves, we blame them for being born into poverty. The cycle has to stop, poverty should not be an acceptable casualty of capitalism, we owe more to each other. We owe more to each other not because we are Americans, not because we are white, black, or any other color, race or religion. We owe more to each other simply because we share a common humanity!