Community Support for the American Medical Loner

By Broadside Opinion Columnist Joshua Lawton

The great crisis facing Americans today is not the war in Iraq, but rather the ongoing domestic war against rising healthcare costs. Americans have blamed a full spectrum of people, professions and organizations for rising healthcare costs. HMOs and some Americans blame the medical malpractice lawyers who win multi-million dollar lawsuits for raising healthcare premiums.

Lawyers counter that it is not them who have caused a climatic increase in healthcare premiums, but rather an ever-greedy for-profit medical insurance system that understands that since everyone needs medical care, they can afford to continually charge Americans more and more for healthcare. If blames and counters were fingers, America would not have any hands to do the work which is needed ahead.

Americans need to look at themselves and their values before placing the blame on external factors, people and organizations. America is built on the epic legend of the loner, the man who stands alone, holding the world upon his shoulders, fighting the savages and godlike forces to reach his promised land.

While many Americans, including myself, believe that it is every American’s responsibility to plant their own trees and be responsible for bearing their own fruit, it has become apparent that the community, which has been the epic loner’s fortitude and salvation, is missing. While there are still those honorable Americans who want to improve their communities, many communities have forgotten those who they are not only responsible for supporting, but who they also depend upon for their salvation in hard times. If an American is thrown into the wilderness to fend for himself by his community, does he owe that community a debt of gratitude and a willingness to give of himself when members of his community are faced with hard times?

Doctors, nurses and all other medical professionals have endured not only the long trials and many tests that they are faced with academically, but also the obstacles of paying for their education and sustaining themselves throughout their studies. Doctors are routinely graduating from medical school with over $200,000 of academic debt.

Their debt does not include the loans that they took out in order to pay for food, lodging and other necessary expenses for survival. It does not matter if the medical professional is on the top of the medical hierarchy or at the bottom, they provide a service for the community.

Yet, what service did the community provide for them when they were scratching away in the hopes of attaining their goals of becoming medical professionals? Simply put, America has left those who we depend upon in our greatest times of need to fight for themselves during and after their education, and we then expect them to not charge us through the nose when we go to them for help.

Americans are proud of going through it alone and being unique, but America is wrong to be proud of being the only industrialized nation that does not provide for a free education for those who are going to serve their communities in a medical capacity.

If federal and state officials are serious about stemming the rise and then decreasing the cost of healthcare, the first step that needs to be taken is a serious decrease in debt that those medical professionals are graduating college with.

While many political officials cannot agree on what type of healthcare reforms will best reduce the rising costs of healthcare, they should all be able to understand that a bipartisan effort to decrease or eliminate all costs for those entering medical professions would be a major step to not only lowering the overall cost of providing healthcare in America, but also improving the quality and accessibility of healthcare for all Americans.

It is time for American communities to invest in the young men and women who wish to help their communities. It is time for America to realize that we fall or rise not on the backs of the individuals, but on the backs of communities.

Every government, every community has a responsibility to provide for the welfare of those that they govern. Our governments and our communities have not lived up to their responsibilities. If we are not willing to keep our end of the bargain with the American medical loners, then they should be able to do what all true capitalists do: better their position in life at the cost of the people.