The Perfect Nanny, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

August 4, 2012 Martha Thomases 9 Comments

Two good friends of mine have had major surgery in the past couple of weeks.  I mean, major surgery.  Vital organs, which are necessary for bodies to work, were cut into and fiddled with, then stitched up.  Both spent a lot of time in the hospital.  Both had to re-learn how to get up and walk, more difficult this time because they had just been cut open.

 

In both cases, my friends had health insurance through their employers (or their partners’ employers).  And in both cases, the financial restrictions imposed by the insurance companies are making difficult situations even more difficult.

 

So I’ve been thinking a lot about health care in this country.

So has Mitt Romney.  On his trip to Israel last week, he said, “Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel?  Eight percent.  You spend eight percent of GDP on health care.  You’re a pretty healthy nation.  We spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care, 10 percentage points more.  That gap, that 10 percent cost, compare with the size of our military — our military which is four percent, four percent.  Our gap with Israel is ten points of GDP.  We have to find ways — not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to fund and manage our health care costs.”

 

As the Washington Post observes in the link, “Israel created a national health care system in 1995, largely funded through payroll and general tax revenue. The government provides all citizens with health insurance: They get to pick from one of four competing, nonprofit plans. Those insurance plans have to accept all customers—including people with pre-existing conditions—and provide residents with a broad set of government-mandated benefits.”

 

In other words, Israel has a modified version of single-payer health insurance, or the dreaded socialism that scared some people so much they started the Tea Party movement (with help from the Koch brothers).

 

(If Romney studied any actual history, he might know that the original Zionist movement was not so much religious as socialist, but that’s a story for another column.)

 

If you have a heart condition or get cancer in Israel, you don’t have to worry about going bankrupt.  You can use that energy to concentrate on getting well.  And if it is your loved one who is sick, you can be a caretaker, devoting yourself to maintaining a healing environment instead of worrying about going bankrupt.

 

My friends are both caught up in situations where care taking is an issue.  Modern life in these United States requires us to be so busy on a daily basis that when there is an emergency, we often don’t have the time or the energy to handle it.  We’re too frazzled.

 

The Republicans like to complain about the so-called nanny state.  I find this hilarious, because so many of them employ nannies.  When they make these complaints, they conflate two separate issues.  In other words, they compare Medicare (a single-payer government program for senior citizens) with Mayor Bloomberg’s misguided (and arrogant) attempt to fight obesity in New York by outlawing large sodas.  Supreme Court Justice Scalia asked if the Affordable Care Act paved the way to requiring people to eat broccoli (for the record, it does not).

 

When I’m sick, I would like to have a nanny.  I would like it if someone could bring me my medicine (preferably with a spoon full of sugar).  I would like someone to clean my apartment, shop for my groceries, and bring me soup when I can’t get out of bed.  I am blessed with many friends who live nearby, and a bank account that can handle an occasional house-keeper, but that isn’t true for everyone.  Some people live in isolated rural areas.  Some people are widowed, or divorced, or single.  Some people are poor.  They shouldn’t have their health compromised by these circumstances.

 

I’m not advocating government-funded nannies.  I might like that, but I haven’t thought it through enough to present an argument.  However, I will advocate for systems that allow us to get sick.  I will even more strongly argue for systems that allow us to take the time to help our loved ones — including those who are not blood relatives — when they are sick.  Jobs are good.  Work is good.  But neither is better than relationships with other humans.

 

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, loves broccoli.