Photo/daymonjhartley.com
By Maureen D. Taylor, M.S.W., MI Welfare Rights Organization and Michael Berger, R.N.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a three part series on the Detroit crisis.
DETROIT, MI — As Detroit continues to be one of the “poster child” cities of corporate America’s exercise of total control, each day presents another challenge to basic rights. Democracy in Michigan was destroyed under the guise of repairing a broken economy. The right to vote was crushed under the concept that residents were too stupid to make critical budget cuts. The right to form unions was cancelled by suggesting that these justice organizations had outlived their usefulness. Healthcare is next. The limited access to medical care is now disappearing under the notion that it costs too much. Pensioners at the age of retirement are denied this benefit as a part of the “sacrifice” retirees must make because the banks and lending industries must be compensated for legacy loans that go back almost sixty years. Nations around the world have debts forgiven routinely, but these corporate banks are “Shylocks and thieves to the bitter end.”
Almost every day we see stories plastered on the news about families trying desperately to raise funds to pay for hospital procedures. In the richest country in the world, Americans still do not have the right to visit healthcare centers if they don’t have healthcare coverage…sad. Among healthcare providers who bring services to those in private homes, conditions are equally as bad.
The role of corporate America in healthcare is becoming ever more aggressive in their desire to profit on the misery of those most in need of care. Medicaid, long the “last best hope” for the uninsured, has become a money-making machine through the denial and elimination of services. Who in their right mind would send a human being home from a hospital with wounds and not even a bandaid to cover the area? When the nurse was asked by a home-bound patient, “can I have a few 4×4 wound pads and some tape, the answer was, “no, your insurance does not cover that.” People confronted by an utter lack of compassion and reasoning will resort to whatever they can. Patients have wrapped up leg wounds with napkins from McDonalds and circulars left on the porch from the neighborhood market. These unsanitary treatments result in re-infection and re-hospitalization—the expected outcome of the drive to maximize profits in the health industry.
Corporate America continues to flex its unholy muscles. A recent suggestion that the blood alcohol limit, which defines a person as legally drunk, should be lowered from .08 to .05 was roundly challenged by the alcohol producing industry. Why? They shamelessly stated they would fight any concept that suggests they sell fewer alcoholic drinks, which might result in lowering profits. Conclusion? It is better to make profits by selling more alcohol than to consider the possibility of reducing the number of people maimed or killed in alcohol-related accidents. Horrible, uncivil, and unacceptable.
Progressives everywhere believe that “the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few.” We will continue the fight for democracy, the fight to make every vote count, the fight to protect workers, and the fight to have universal access to healthcare for every man, woman and child in this country. Why? Because it’s the right fight!!
