Via Think Progress, here’s an ad that makes you think a bit about our health care system:
If he were anyone else, he’d probably be dead by now. The patient’s history and prognosis were grim: four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, angioplasty, an implanted defibrillator and now an emergency procedure to treat an irregular heartbeat. For millions of Americans, this might be a death sentence. For [him], it was just another medical treatment. And it cost him very little.
Who’s “he”? If you didn’t click the link to the ad, “he” is Vice President Dick Cheney, who likely doesn’t have a fraction of the trouble you or I do getting access to health care. Or paying the avalanche of bills that come after.
The rest of the ad talks about a house bill proposing a single-payer health care system for the US. While I don’t think we’ll get single payer in the very near future, it seems like a good thing to work towards. We should be ashamed – as a society – that any American has to go without health care.