Super Bowl Commercial for the Dead Patientsby Donna Smith
Published on Saturday, February 5, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
I'd love to see a Super Bowl commercial Sunday that stated the facts about how many Americans will die on Super Bowl Sunday this year because they didn't have access to the healthcare they needed. 123 will die on Sunday, and perhaps a photo of one of the dead every 12 minutes or so during a commercial break would be instructive. That's how often someone dies in the country because he or she couldn't get care.
The Dead Patient's Society grows larger by 123 every single day in America. There is no time off for major sporting events.
Every 12 minutes while we jam in nachos and giggle about the most creative Super Bowl ads, someone will die who could have -- should have -- been saved. That dead person didn't have the cash or the credit or the insurance approval to get the care he or she might have accessed in order to survive to see the Packers and the Steelers play.
The patients die while doctors and hospitals hold at arm's length the treatments that could have saved lives. I don't understand how they do it. I have never understood how the people or provider organizations that take oaths to care for the sick and relieve suffering can get a phone call from an insurance company and then turn their backs when payment is denied. Or how they see a shivering, hurting person and turn them away when care is so easily available. Too bad we cannot run the sick to the field on Super Bowl Sunday and have teams of medical experts rush to treat them. But then they are not star football players, are they?
Oh, I understand the evil empire of the for-profit insurance giants and that providers cannot give away healthcare lest they go broke. I do get that. But, still, I do not know how neighbors turn their backs on neighbors and doctors turn their backs on patients. I couldn't do it. Maybe I am weak in that regard. I always wonder why we don't see and hear more about the dear doctors and providers who defy the financial death warrants and treat people in spite of the financial risk. I know there are some. We just don't hear about them too much. Some doctors say they have to be careful lest their hospitals and other doctors punish them for speaking or acting outside the profit-making fold.