In light of my being a mad-as-hell pre-med student, I want to share this letter to President Obama from the Mad as Hell Doctors of Oregon. Let's hope our Nobel prize-winning President finds in his selection for the award the strength to continue the fight against private insurance and our broken "health care" system.
I'll comment only on the following aspect of the letter: where Dr. Hochfeld contrasts the agendas of those on the "right" and the "left," I must point something out. The partisan framing of the health care debate has distracted us from the basic question at stake. Once again, I refer to T.R. Reid, who states in his book that the first question a country must answer in seeking to reform its health care system is a moral question. Do we value human life or private profits more? Do we believe that the right to health care access trumps the right to private property?
The answer is not a function of siding with the red or the blue; the answer is a function of what we as a nation believe is our ethical imperative towards our fellow citizens, neighbors, families, and friends. Once we start framing the debate thusly perhaps our national values will shine through a bit more clearly; only then will we be able to reach a reasonable conclusion that should reflect what the majority believes. And after all, isn't that the whole point of democracy?
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"i learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes." - from The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
chaska's words and opinions do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program or the US government. thankfully, they are hers alone.
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