From a friend: "An argument for the current system I heard the
other day was that Insurance people had a right to make a
living. Same argument I heard when automated elevators
threatened the livelihoods of elevator operators. Difference
there was most of them were poor blacks, not wealthy, powerful
white guys."
(And I would add that make-work projects just
transfer money from one citizen to another, for no useful
purpose. Perhaps they call that "revenue sharing.")
July 5, 2007
Guest Columnist
A National Gut-Check: Who Lives Better?
By TIMOTHY EGAN
One of the memorable scenes in “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s latest
cinematic provocation, comes from France, where he shows doctors
in their little white cars making house calls — for free.
But it’s not just France. When we lived in Italy some time ago,
a doctor came to our farmhouse rental on Easter Sunday morning
to diagnose a stomach ailment. He charged nothing.
Let’s stipulate that Moore is a one-sided pamphleteer, with a
bit of Mark Twain and Pat Robertson in his shtick. But like all
propagandists, his job is not to find some objective truth, but
to anger, challenge, ask hard questions.
With Independence Day just passed, a good nationalist shouldn’t
be afraid to answer those questions. So, who lives better, us or
them?
In Italy, this was a regular parlor game when friends came to
visit. Inevitably, after a few days of taking in our new world —
a village public school for the kids, neighbors who opened the
doors of their ancient homes to us, a lengthy siesta every
afternoon — our houseguests would side with the Italians. I
would counter for the U.S.A., to keep the argument alive.
The Italians won on health, family and food. The United States
was better on race and opportunity.
With health care, the anecdotal often carried the argument. One
day, a tenant farmer named Sergio, our neighbor, woke with a
terrible eye infection. He was full of pain, unable to see.
Sergio got world-class care in Florence. After three days of
attentive fussing in the hospital, he came home entirely well
and without a bill.
Had he showed up at any American hospital — poor, no insurance —
well, good luck. Especially in a place like Texas, where 30
percent of adults lack health insurance and what can pass for
medical care is a get-in-line form of triage.
But even with insurance, Americans are stuck with what may be
the worst of all systems: one that lets a handful of
corporations make life-and-death decisions, with incentive to
dump and deny.
Little wonder that the United States ranks 37th in effectiveness
of health care. Italy ranks 2nd. This is a country that can’t
form a government to last longer than the soccer season, and
yet, they make our medical system look barbaric.
If our system doesn’t kill you — see the infant mortality and
life expectancy rates, bringing up the rear — it can put you in
the poorhouse. Medical catastrophes are the leading cause of
bankruptcy, and most of those are people who have some
insurance, clinging to the frayed edge of the middle class.
O.K., so what about leisure? Americans spend nearly a third of
their disposable income on good times, baby. But we can’t relax.
Sorry — no time. Lunch averages 31 minutes. And the U.S. ranks
dead last among 21 of the world’s richest countries when it
comes to guaranteed days off, according to the Center for
Economic and Policy Research.
Most Americans don’t even use their allotted days of leisure.
The Italians take 42 vacation days a year — No. 1 in the world.
The average American takes 13.
A quarter of Americans receive no vacation at all. And it’s not
like we don’t need it: one in three are chronically overworked.
We even work 100 hours a year more than the Japanese.
President Bush has it figured out, with his month off at the
ranch. But for a profile in clueless, Bush set the mark when he
lauded as truly American some citizen who told him she had to
work three jobs. Ain’t that something?
Ah, but what about taxes? Europeans pay more than we do, to fund
that free health care. Take that, Euro-trash, while lying on the
beach. And yet, our tax system is approaching Gilded Age
disparity. Listen to Warren Buffett, the third richest man in
the world. Last year, he was taxed at 17 percent of his taxable
income, he said last month. His receptionist paid nearly twice
that, at 30 percent.
Where America shines is with our multiracial society and the
easy access to opportunity. It was jarring to listen to
otherwise thoughtful Tuscans denigrate Ethiopian immigrants or
even their Sicilian countrymen.
By contrast, nothing made me prouder than telling Italians that
I came from a place with an African-American mayor and a
Chinese-American governor. Or that I grew up in a big
Irish-American family with little money.
A patriot should not be afraid to have this debate, vigorously —
after a nap.
Timothy Egan, a former Seattle correspondent for The Times and
the author of “The Worst Hard Time,” is a guest columnist. |
