Jeff McCallum

I have many health care stories, hear many, witness more than one or two: how providing my employees with the best insurance available was a great benifit- to me, how people nearly die from misdiagnosis or improper care, how many brave and lonely people there are lost in the system or “doing quite well thank you” and certainly how if it is a budget dictated choice between food and medication I’ll take the food every time which leads me to my point and my poems.

I believe we are misdirected on the health care issue, confused by the facts applied to all sides of the great shell game called the health care debate. It seems simple enough to me:

Decide that all are entitled to health care (apparently they are, if you look at existing social programs, the county hospitals and the emergency rooms of countless other private hospitals.)

Decide how to pay for it. Don’t get lost in the debate over what it costs, the numbers are too confusing and we are already paying for most of it anyway in dollars or in human consequence.

Decide how to control the costs.

There is one simple model that stands out to me; our utilities grid in states with Public Utilities Commissions. The grid was put in place largely by the government, everyone has access to it and the cost and profits are controlled by the Public utilities commission.

The publicly traded companies which dutifully send us our electric bill each month generate a fair profit for their share holders and there are mechanisms in place to aid those who can not pay. There are no exclusions for preexisting conditions, no better grade of service and no $100 million dollar bonuses.

Illuminating Health Care for All

Perhaps you have one on your keychain but

I only carry a flashlight when forewarned the basement will be dark,

The power off, a storm coming, know I will be exploring

boarded up buildings

Or experiencing the wonders of nature by starlight,

Otherwise I am confident all will be well;

When I flip the switch to on

There will be illumination.

I expect dark corners to disappear,

Hobgoblins and shadows to hide when

I flick that switch

After all,

Uncle Sam and I, or least my grandparents,

Paid for the thing,

The whole enormous grid I mean.

Tenement to Tennessee roadhouse

Every nook and granny’s connected.

If one can afford a wash machine or wide screen HD TV

By God the power is there to make it function.

Life being imperfect, or at least

The machines that supplement life here in America,

Act as though it’s meant to be that way,

Imperfect I mean,

So hospitals and big business have automatic generators.

My computer has battery back up and surge protection,

Hope yours does too.

I expect not to have a heart attack opening the utility bill,

Palpitations perhaps,

Due to the fluctuating price of fuel oil, the cost of the war

And the resulting state of the economy but

I live in a state with a Public Utilities Commission,

Put my kids through college with dividend checks from the reigning power monopoly

And the cost, taxed by all governing entities,

Is bearable.

My mother however,

or someone you know , have seen or not seen on a street corner or exit ramp

With or without the sign saying “Homeless, Feed me”,

Or, “Why Lie, I Need a Beer”

Has no health care.

They are off the grid so to speak.

We provide flashlights of course.

Small, weak beamed devices of limited life span

with government issued batteries possibly

from the day- old store or re-issued from the overstock in Iraq.

Some are powered by the love energy of volunteer workers.

Limited, dim and short lived

But flashlights none the less.

Emergency rooms, free clinics, Head Start, a list of programs that change

With the current budget,

All intended to illuminate the path

To better health for those off the grid, or those who just plain

Can’t pay the bill.

Electricity and health care.

One expected to function every time we flip the switch

For as long as we pay the bill,

I imagine it’s the same for the other.

Preexisting Conditions

Cultures where the aged and dying,
The toothless and slow wander off,
Trek as purposefully as their unstable gait allows
Toward the wilderness, the elephant burial ground
To leave us unburdened
Are dead, aren’t they?

Except for America.
We are Sparta at end life.
Our failing are removed from the roles,
Cast from the life raft, marked as pariah.
Tales of the fabulous and famous suffering these indignities
Distract us from this war or that
As we are lifted to Olympus on the pages of super market tabloids.
Our consciousness tickled, our conscience fails to make the connection,
To penetrate the molasses thick
Slow swirl of the amber filter the media whores
Smears like honey over the dry bread of our lives.
They hide a hundred, a thousand,
A lost tribe of Joe the plumber, Joyce the beautician,
Alice the single mother of three
And Bill, the veteran of some war or another
Because they are irrelevant to Sparta.

Katrina, a long five minutes of fame for the tribe of the nameless
Isolated in the remote reaches of forgotten
Removed beyond memory and follow-up.
9/11 claimed its victims
The war began, and her victims disappeared,
Returned to their rightful place out of line.
We send more humanitarian aid to the faceless
Of some other nation, spend more on airport security than
Shelter for the disenfranchised.

Preexisting conditions exist as a statistic, leave perhaps millions
Out in the reign of the insurance gods,
The cold of anonymity a grey shawl on their shoulders
And if they are tired or different or poor
Some reason or another
Is casually assigned to their condition
And our conscience
Which warrants no response.
Let the tireless hands of Mother Teresa continue
She’s a volunteer after all.