America's health care malady creates the opportunity for a cure

Iknow them only in passing, the family who lives in a nearby apartment. Sure, I should be better about it, making acquaintance more than just saying hello as we share a common space outdoors, but I have not.

Today, however, I hurt for them. I have heard from another neighbor of a grease fire, of a kitchen scorched and of a young man badly burned. I do not know the details well enough to recount here, nor would I feel comfortable in doing so.

But I do know about a family that is now living minute-by-minute in Chapel Hill, near the burn center. I know a mother who desperately wants her son to get better, yet is also likely contemplating in silent fear the possibility that giving her child the medical care he desperately needs may mean financial problems she cannot bear.

So it goes in America, the land of boundless opportunity. It is everything a person can hope for, with limitless freedom and liberty proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed under the Constitution. Yet, nowhere in those noble documents does a right to health care or freedom from exorbitant rates exist. They never mention insurance companies, co-payments or the cost of prescription drugs.

These are the questions for each generation to decide, for citizens to consider and for lawmakers to debate. There are those who rail against the idea of a living Constitution, arguing that the Founding Fathers crafted a government in 1787 that was intended to encompass all manner of needs that the nation's capital should provide.

But how can one look at their writing, read their arguments and conclude that those men believed their successors to be so simple minded as to be unable to make natural extrapolations on the basis of a brilliant framework of ideas? How can one think that simply because no right to health care exists, that even if its cost would be dwarfed by that of the military or other matters that promote the general welfare, that we should not consider extending reasonable coverage to contributing and valuable members of the American family?

Sadly, there are plenty who endorse such a viewpoint and who reject the notion of even basic coverage for those without any. And so we are left with millions of uninsured — nearly 50 million at last count, though finding an exact figure in this time of economic turmoil is nearly impossible. Countless more are underinsured, unable to afford the type of coverage that can stave off financial ruin should disaster strike. We have millions facing the prospect of life outside the comforting embrace of health care because of job loss, and millions of seniors counting every penny to see that there is enough in the jar to pay for the new drugs, not the outdated generics, that can help maintain a fruitful life in their silver years.

When President Barack Obama talks about health care coverage for all Americans, as he did consistently throughout the campaign, he gave voice to the fears and insecurities of these men and women.

When Gov. Beverly Perdue spoke about the need for the state to repair the state's broken health care plan, it demanded lasting reform, not the temporary measure passed last month that raises costs and reduces benefits.

There is a health care crisis in America and it is no secret. The highest officials — the president, the governor — know it. And average American citizens — including my neighbors now waiting anxiously in the Chapel Hill burn unit — live it.

If this is acceptable to most, if a majority of Americans continues to believe that this is all we can do in our country, then we will persist in a broken system that benefits only those with the financial means to receive proper medical care. We will continue to see illness claim our children, to see our elderly succumb to preventable disease and to see millions stricken with anguish at the choice of enduring the high cost of seeking care or doing without.

I believe we have to do better. Both because we can, and because we should.

Brian Colligan is the editorial page editor of The Daily Reflector. Contact him at bcolligan@coxnc.com or at (252) 329-9507.