Health Care, Yet Again

SAT., APR. 16, 1994, 5:52 AM
DOWNTOWN HOTEL, DENVER

In several ways the emphasis on “health care” in the convention sessions you’ve attended has been a positive, holistic one. It seems, increasingly, that medical care for everyone, with all of the services now possible, shall not be possible. Therefore a focus on health, its development, its maintenance, and its improvement, seems necessary… and you know that’s what I favor.

But, then, what about your back, leg, and foot? You are close to accepting the need for surgery that can restore the function of your foot and relieve the strange pains that even now are encroaching. This could restore you at least closer to full health, so wouldn’t it be worth doing? You are still functioning as a professional, contributing to the health of others. You are not yet old and retired. Shouldn’t these qualifications be sufficient to justify such a reparative procedure?

For you do foresee that as this “reform” takes shape there must be some cap on funds for health and medical care, and therefore there must be a rationing of services. This will necessitate decisions that will be both practical and spiritual as to who deserves what services, and why or why not. After this reformed system is in place, with basic care for every American, how would this present need of yours be judged? Would your spiritual desire to serve and give back, through your teaching, be a factor? If so, how important? Conversely, if you were retired and serving in a much diminished way, would this lessen the possibility of expensive services being available to you, unless you were willing to pay for such “out of your own pocket”?

You can envision the future of high priced diagnosis and treatment, as the number of elderly, retired persons increase. You might merit no service at all. Or you might have to choose between one expensive procedure that would restore walking function and another which could rid your body of cancer cells and hence prolong your life. Or could you justify both because of how you have lived your life?

Health is functioning fully as a whole person. One course for the future would be focusing medical resources on the young, trying to insure that each infant, child, and youth has the best chance for a healthy life. Another, or perhaps a corollary to the first, would be offering medical care of the sort you are considering only to those who have been healthy, functioning rather fully. But that would require difficult, subjective decisions almost constantly.

Would functioning as a teacher be judged superior to functioning as a bus driver or a plumber? Would functioning as an elementary teacher be judged more worthy than university professoring? How would you judge and compare non-work-related service? How would the health of spirit be assessed? A person with a healthy spirit might well let her “earned” medical care go to another. Would this be acceptable?

You have functioned quite fully here this week, despite this imperfection affecting your foot. Would you have been more “successful” with no disability? These are questions hard to answer.