As a nurse anesthetist, I hear daily attacks by doctors on President Clinton’s attempts to change our health-care system so that all Americans can be insured. At home, I am further disheartened to see on the news the insurance industry, the AMA, the Republican Party and Christian TV evangelists trashing the president and Mrs. Clinton in order to undermine their attempt to insure us all.
It seems to me these powerful groups have lost any feeling for working people, whose life savings can be wiped out by a single illness or accident. I’ll never forget the faces of a mom and dad in a surgical waiting room. Their young son had been at a neighbor’s house for a party when a drunken intruder stabbed him. He came through the surgery fine, but his parents still looked devastated.
“They’ve got jobs but no insurance,” the surgeon whispered. “By the time this kid gets out of this hospital that party will cost them from $18,000 to $20,000.”
