Several years after Timothy McVeigh’s truck bomb murdered 168 people in Oklahoma City our local paper mentioned in a little snippet that Microsoft, a local company, had donated several hundred copies of it’s Office suite, specially configured for office workers who survived the bombing but were long-term or permanently disabled. Like I say, 168 dead is a nice, tidy number but it’s just not the end of the story.
Via Darksyde of Daily Kos comes yet another reminder that for all its grim, statistical, journalistically-tidy finality, death isn’t necessarily the worst fate for victims of war, fire, and crime.
This time it’s about a victim who survived George Sodini’s murderous assault this summer at a gym in Pittsburgh:
The ‘best healthcare™’ system in the world strikes again:
My sister is a member of the fitness club where that shooting took place. It was just chance that she was not there, and not in that fitness class, the night the shooting took place. My gratefulness for her safety has been tempered by my sadness for the women who were … Well, just imagine my thoughts today when I talked to my sister, and she let me know what was going on for one of the women who was shot at the fitness club.
The young woman had recently graduated college and therefore had “aged out” of coverage on her parents’ health insurance. ... So her friends and family recently sponsored a friggin’ car wash to raise funds to pay her hospital bills. Yes. A car wash.
If I was a legislator promoting the healthcare initiative currently being debated in Congress I think I’d be inclined to a) determine whether this story is true, b) determine whether it’s really true that there’s really currently no Federal provisions for healthcare for the victims of violent crime, and if I verified a and b, then c) I’d attach an authorizing rider to the bill and then d) decry anyone who failed to support a healthcare-reform bill containing that provision as soft on crime and indifferent to the plight of victims of the likes of Timothy McVeigh and George Sodini… possibly on the grounds that they were sympathetic to the “conservative” views of Misters McVeigh and Sodini.
And yes I suppose e) that would be a gross misrepresentation of the positions of… well, at least several opponents of healthcare reform but f) it wouldn’t be the first such gross misrepresentation in the debate would it?
Submitted by 3169 (not verified) on Thu, 2009-09-03 11:47.
YES YES YES YES YES.
as an unemployed recent college graduate whose biggest fear at the moment is getting seriously injured in a car accident or an assault, i'd vote for you!
[I wish they'd let me run, Cara. I could use health insurance too. :-| Thanks for the vote of confidence -- if not the actual vote. :-) --fl]
Submitted by 3169 (not verified) on Fri, 2009-09-04 08:29.
It's stories like that which makes the health system in the US look barbaric to the rest of the world.
Thankfully, that really couldn't happen where I live; not only is everyone's hospital care covered by the government's insurer (Medicare), but we also have a 'victims of crime fund' which is just what it sounds like.
But if it could happen, I'd be asking exactly the same questions you are.