The Jameson Problem

I know a boy named Jameson and he is a problem. He’s not just a problem for me; I think he is a problem for all of us. I introduced you to this boy last November in an essay called “The Boy with No Arms”. I told you how young Jameson was born with no arms-just above the elbow. I told you how this birth defect was impacting him and his family. I went on to discuss the issue of medical care for this boy to provide him with prosthetic arms, and how expensive that was going to be over the course of his childhood years. Jameson will be one year old in April. Kids grow pretty fast and his need for new prosthetics will grow with him.

Back in November I had just attended a Pancake Breakfast fund-raiser to help his parents secure the money to get Jameson his first set of prosthetic arms. I noted back then that his parents are hardworking people who are dedicated to making their son’s life normal and productive, just as other parents are. They have some health care insurance but they had to battle the insurance company just to get them to acknowledge Jameson’s condition as one they would minimally cover. Even with their insurance, they will still face monumental costs for many years to come. The last time I wrote about this boy I expanded my view to discuss the costs associated with my friend Molly’s cancer treatment, and how my son-in-law literally lost everything because he had cancer some years before he came into our family. The story hasn’t changed. Medical care is unbelievably expensive if you have a serious illness or condition. The insurance companies still try every maneuver possible to avoid paying for care while relentlessly raising the price of premiums for everyone else. Sick people or the parents of afflicted children still stay up nights terrified about their health and equally terrified about how to pay the bills or how to face the real prospect of losing everything they’ve worked for. 

I'm  reminding you of the story I wrote last November because I had another Jameson experience about a week ago. Once again, very kind-hearted people had taken it upon themselves to sponsor a lovely event to raise money for Jameson and his family. This was a public event where the folks who attended bought tickets to attend, then purchased raffle tickets to win donated goods and services, or buy drinks, all to help raise money for Jameson’s care. There were 80- 100 in attendance. I’m sure it was a successful event, though I never heard how much money was raised. The money raised can be no more than a drop in the bucket of the actual costs. Throughout the night I kept having two conflicting thoughts. The first thought was how great it is that these people will come together to help fund some of this child’s needs. The second thought was how tragic it is that the richest country in the world is reduced to having fund-raisers to provide care for this child. I thought about the tremendous insecurity a family in this circumstance must feel knowing their fate lies in the random giving of others, however kind that giving is.

A woman was at the event to speak and share her experience as part of the event for Jameson. She too wears a prosthetic arm because she was born with an arm missing, just like Jameson- only Jameson was born with both arms missing. The woman now works for a company that researches, develops, and manufactures prosthetics. Her company has agreed to donate a set of arms for Jameson when he’s ready. The family will have to make some rather complicated decisions about the offer, but it was nonetheless a kind offer. The newest innovation in somewhat functional electronically controlled prosthetic arms will cost about $25,000.00 for one set which he will outgrow relatively quickly. The (one adult) arm our speaker was wearing cost approximately $40,000.00, she told us.

When we're confronted with a real life situation the policy decisions we make as a nation seem very different than the impersonal debate of bloodless politicians who bluster, and cajole us when the TV camera is pointed their way. Yet on some level we have to know and understand that policies and real life intersect all the time. Laws, policies, Court rulings, arguments about the role of government, or our obligations to our fellow citizens (young and old) don’t exist in the abstract. In fact they are played out in real life before our own eyes every day. The Jameson problem is that many of us have managed to compartmentalize these two facets of our lives and beliefs so successfully that it’s become too easy to feel compassion for a little boy’s needs on one hand, and feel disdain for our collective responsibility to him on the other hand. And just to be clear, when I say “collective responsibility” I mean government. Government exists for a number of reasons, and one of the reasons stated in the Constitution is to “promote the common welfare”.  This is certainly open to interpretation as are most parts of the Constitution, but I believe this portion of the preamble (at the very least) suggests there actually is a “common welfare”- that promoting the common good of the people is a role of government, which implies a collective responsibility. Even though it may not seem like it most of the time, we are the government in this democratic society of ours.

The Jameson problem, just like the problem for others I know and countless others I don’t know, is the same. We have created a health care system whose purpose is to not provide health care. Our private insurance system operates on the capitalistic, private enterprise model that most conservatives believe is the answer to everything. Private enterprise works well in most areas of commerce where there is choice and competition leads to legitimate market solutions- but not for health care that everyone needs without regard to choice in the marketplace. The marketplace  should not be in charge of our health care. The basic business model for health insurance is to charge maximum premiums, then resist paying them out for our health care. That’s how they create capital and corporate wealth.

I wonder if we really want a country that sees a boy like Jameson and says, “Tough luck- sorry you were born that way and I hope you can come up with the money you need on your own- good luck with those pancake breakfast fund-raisers”? Or do we want a country that sees so many of its citizens lose everything to medical bills and says, “gee that’s a shame, awfully sorry that cancer is so expensive and you had to choose between dying or getting treatment- sorry about that bankruptcy- But you know, government isn’t here to take care of you”?  If that sounds harsh, just remember that is exactly what we’re saying now.

As the debate goes on over the role of government, the deficit, and Obama Care, it’s important to remember the faces of those who live in the shadow of these monumental policy decisions. I’ve never been one who believes this country is broke. That is not to say we don’t have huge fiscal problems- we do. Our fiscal problems aren’t from a lack of wealth, they’re from policies that don’t properly prioritize the way wealth is created, collected, spent and distributed. If we look around it’s easy to see enormous wealth, along with powerful political forces so ready to protect the wealthy while telling the Jameson’s of the world “we just can’t afford to care for you”. Those forces are very eager to foster a “disconnect” between real cases and abstract policy decisions because it’s much easier on the conscience. Its child’s-play to make a sweeping case against the “takers”, until you look in the face of a real child and call a one-year old boy with no arms a “taker”.

We’ve had the answer to the Jameson problem right in front of us the whole time, but we’ve never had the political will to seize it.  The obvious answer is universal single-payer health care. Every other advanced country does it, and they all provide better and cheaper health care. But our politicians can’t seem to break away from anything that isn’t based on the profit motive. So the disconnect continues in our discourse and decision making. It is the same kind of disconnect that explains our Congress having a dismal 13% approval rating (lower than a root canal) but 92% of incumbent Congressmen get reelected. Everybody hates “them” but they love “mine”- even when “mine” is part of “them”.

So, we ask the question again: Is that the kind of country we want to live in; where misfortune, illness, or disability is simply viewed as “your problem”? If it is, then we are being very short-sighted and ignoring the other long-term costs of allowing our policies to ruin and bankrupt families and leave citizens without needed health care. The long-term cost of those preventable maladies is too great and ethically wrong. Young Jameson is proof of that problem.

Thanks for looking in.