Progressive Wednesday

Healing Health Care: Mail

May 16th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday

Mail:

First, two facts:

1. Today, 8.3 million American kids lack health care (that’s 400,000 more than last year).
2. 25 million kids lack dental care. That’s one third of all children in the United States.

Now that you’re in the know about children and health care, let’s do something a little heartier to help those who can’t help themselves, those who we all need to help if we’re going to call ourselves a civilized country. We’ve said some of this before, but we’ll say it again. We’ll say it until children get treated, not fairly, but justly.

Kids that grow up in hard-working families or large families or poor families and lack quality health care, well, it’s no fault of their own. In many cases, probably most cases, it’s not the fault of the parents either.

And we owe it to kids. As a culture, we’ve already decided that, in many ways, it’s our collective job to protect children. We’ve installed V-chips in TVs. We provide mandatory public education. There are different seatbelt laws for wee ones. Alcohol, tobacco, pornography, and gambling are off-limits. The government has set specific limits on the amount of work teens can do. That the physical health of children and teenagers has been ignored flies in the face of the other ways we collectively lend a helping hand to young ones. It’s a lot easier to play and learn and simply be when you feel good: kids deserve as fantastic a childhood as we can reasonably provide them. All children are our children.

Plus there’s a financial benefit. If you’re healthier, you’re going to find it easier to pay attention in school, and you’ll miss less days. For some families, it’s practically not an option to keep a kid home from school since the rent or mortgage demands the parents go to work. Parents might have to choose between keeping a roof over their children’s heads and nurturing them back to health. Plus, a healthy populace is a more productive populace.

And let’s not forget that empathy is the American virtue. You see it in equal protection laws. You see it in homeless shelters, charities, Pell grants, aid to foreign countries, blood drives…. For crying out loud, you see it on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition! We saw it in spades on 9/11 and the days and months that followed. We even protect wildlife better than we protect some kids. To say that some children deserve to go to a doctor and others do not seems about as callous and cold-hearted as it gets. My friends, we’re better than that.

So, here’s what we’d like you to do: alter, print, sign, fold, envelope, address, stamp, and mail the following letter to your newspaper’s editor.

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Dear Editor:

If we’re to be considered a civilized country, we need to fix health care for kids. There are 74 million children in this country, and 8.3 million of them lacked health insurance in 2005. That’s more people than live in New York City. This is an increase of 400,000 from 2004. To say that some children deserve to go to a doctor and others do not seems about as callous and cold-hearted as it gets. My friends, we’re better than that.

But we needn’t wait for a new President to make change happen. Our state could subsidize health care to all children not covered by their parents plans.

And how could we do this? My proposal is quite simple: we ought to raise the cigarette tax by one dollar. Before you smokers get up in arms, can you honestly tell me you would refuse to pay more for nicotine and therefore refuse to help out innocent children?

I know we have it in our hearts to do better for our kids, our American kids, our future as a country where we believe children deserve our best gifts.

Sincerely,

You