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Extreme Healthcare Makeover
Healthcare reform has become one of the most divisive debates
among Americans in recent months. It has become a screaming
match where as President Obama puts it
"the loudest
and shrillest voices are the ones being heard."
In the past few months, town hall meetings have become hostile
events where local representatives and constituents are being
treated like uneducated fools. This behavior was transferred now
to the higher level when during the President’s
Joint session to Congress was interrupted by Senator Joe Wilson
from South Carolina’s
scream "You
Lie!"
While another senator felt no need to yell, he just had a sign
of "What
Bill?"
showcased on his lap. Obviously, mature adult behavior has
disappeared, and adults have resorted to temper tantrums and
bullying.
The issue that perturbs me the most is that we, as Americans,
have long been concerned about healthcare in our nation. Long
before "Sicko"
was ever shown in a movie theater or classroom, we have been
suffering the consequences of a program gone awry. While other
nations such as England, France, Denmark, and Canada have made
universal healthcare a priority, we continue to believe that
healthcare is not a right that we all should enjoy, but instead
we should pay a truck load for it and possibly be denied access
(if we are too sick –
isn’t
that when we need healthcare the most?). I’m
guessing this is the American attitude that we have to do things
ourselves and "work
for it"
while keeping the government out of the scenario. The citizens
that can afford it, receive it, while the people who can’t
just have to work harder. And doesn’t
universal healthcare coverage sound like, dare I write it,
socialism? So, while we wait and wait for a healthcare bill that
actually reforms, we have constant reminders of a failed
healthcare system everywhere, especially on television.
While watching a rerun of Extreme Home Makeover the other
night, I was shocked to see that it showcases an outcome of a
failing healthcare system. It was the usual premise of a family
that has a sick child which they are using every last penny to
keep healthy. With no money left to spare to fix their house,
they live in one that should be condemned while they are left
trying to figure out how to pay the normal bills, feed their
family, send their kids to school, and still keep their ailing
child or parent healthy. This is where the Extreme Home Makeover
team comes in. They come to the house, send the much deserved
family on a vacation, and when they come home, there is a brand
new, sometimes paid off house there for the family so they can
attempt to pay for the treatments and other bills. Almost every
episode is about a child, parent, or both being sick. In turn
the family lives in a broken house with cracks in the
foundation, no windows and no insulation while it basically
falls apart beneath them. This popular show helps families who
have been reduced to poverty because of their medical bills. And
yet, people are still saying there is nothing wrong with our
current system.
People are fighting healthcare reform when one of the most
popular shows on television shows the consequences of high
healthcare costs and low coverage. Some of the episodes show the
aftermath of a family that has lost their loved one to their
illness and is overcome by medical bills. These families are no
longer allowed to save for their children ’s
college education or home repairs. Instead they are burdened by
an enormous amount of debt which they can’t
see their way out of.
These families turn to a television program (how American) to
fix their house and hopefully receive some money to pay down
their past and current medical bills. They go to ABC instead of
pushing their representatives and their government to change the
system. This program has been on television for six seasons and
148 episodes (so around 148 families have been helped). The show
always manages to bring tears to the eyes of everyone who
watches it (don ’t
deny it).
The issue at hand here is that everyone is susceptible to
this scenario (and most likely the vast majority of us will not
be saved by a television show). The middle class is especially
susceptible to these circumstances. If someone in your family
becomes ill with a disease that there are methods to cure it,
most likely that family will come close to or become bankrupt.
The nation needs to ask itself why we embrace programs such
as Extreme Home Makeover which are examples of a ruined
healthcare system, and yet we refuse to actually do anything
about it. Maybe Americans enjoy Extreme Home Makeover so much
because people suffer and work hard before they get rewarded.
Most people are refusing any type of reform because it would be
"taking
away their America."
Yes, ‘their
America’
where families just like their own will become sick and suddenly
their worlds are turned upside down. If reform does not occur, I
doubt ‘their
America’
will take care of them.
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