The Book

en-trap-ment /n. 1. The act of government agents or officials that induces a person to commit a crime he or she is not previously disposed to commit.

I know everyone convicted of a crime has a “story” and that even typical upstanding citizens can do bad things. I understand the need for laws to maintain an orderly and safe society. I understand the need for appropriate punishment for people who break those laws. However, society cannot take away people’s rights to a basic need, such as health care, and then punish them because in desperation they seek other ways to help themselves and have any quality of life. It reeks of entrapment. The police and courts should be more than a conviction machine, chewing up and spitting out people regardless of situations.

It does feel as though I was “set up” by my government. We’ve become a country so rooted in predatory capitalism that basic health care is out of reach for millions of its citizens. Medical care is just one more way to exploit people for profit and it is done so with expert precision. It gives the impression that people are objects to be used for financial gain and nothing more. 45,000 die every year in this country because they cannot afford medical treatment due to lack of insurance. (Harvard University Study )

My husband watched his father die in an excruciating way for just this reason. His dad became very ill in 2008. He knew the condition was serious but he wouldn’t go to a hospital as he had no insurance and didn’t want to run up astronomical medical bills. So over a two week period he declined rapidly, his liver shutting down until at the end of the two weeks he didn’t even resemble the same man. He died in his wife’s arms shortly after Roy had come back from visiting him. It was a very painful death. Though doctors could have eased his pain and suffering, he could not “afford” it.

Until you watch someone suffer in this manner, or until you are personally faced with the same situation, judgment should be reserved concerning the “poor” or about how people should just “go see a doctor” to get help. Many middle income families have been destroyed by medical bills. It is not just a problem of the poor.

I have a good friend who works for the government. They take $280 out of every paycheck every two weeks ($7,280 a year) for her insurance. There have been only two times in 15 years employment where she has had a larger health issue occur. So for 13 years her insurance company made a huge profit off of her. The second bigger heath issue she had was in 2011 and required major surgery with 4 days hospitalization. When all was said and done she still owed $3000 out of her own pocket that her insurance company would not pay.

Half of all bankruptcies in the U.S. stem from a medical crisis and the group hardest hit is the middle class. “We thought we were going to find these were poor people, uninsured,” says Dr. David Himmelstein, the [Harvard University] study’s lead investigator . “By and large, we found it was the middle class.” (“Destroyed By Doctor’s Bills”, People Magazine )

The article quoted above in People Magazine includes several stories of people with decent incomes whose lives were destroyed by medical bills. It’s an all too common occurrence as the Harvard study found out. Exploiting the sick and dying is unconscionable. Yet it’s typical business practice in America.

I handled my pain as long as I could, for many years in fact, until I couldn’t handle it any more. What are the expectations of our government for citizens in such a situation? That we should crawl off in a corner and suffer or die alone? “Decrease the surplus population” as it were? That appears to be the unspoken consensus. And what a cruel and ruthless one it is.