Above Photo: ‘How did we reach this sordid state of affairs?’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Some think the story of an 11-year-old desperately raising money on weekends is ‘heart-warming’. It’s really an indictment of all that is wrong with the US
When 11-year-old Nemiah Martinez of Las Cruces, New Mexico, found out her mom needed money to help her get a kidney and pancreas transplant, she didn’t waste time feeling sorry for herself. She got off her 11-year-old behind, pulled herself up by her Dora the Explorer shoelaces, and opened a lemonade stand.
To date, she’s raised over $1,000 for her mom’s care by selling drinks out of her family’s garage every weekend for $1.50 a pop. Now, with any luck, this resourceful little girl might still have a mother by the time she graduates from high school. “I’m the lucky one,” Nemiah’s mom, Paloma, told ABC News.
ABC News portrayed Nemiah’s plight as a feelgood human interest story. One radio show called the story “heartwarming”. We should call it what it really is: a damning indictment of everything that’s wrong with America.
According to a 2015 Gallup poll, 42% of Americans name the cost of, or lack of access to, healthcare as the most urgent health problem facing our country. As of the end of 2017, 12.2% of Americans lacked any kind of health insurance, a figure that’s once again rising since hitting a record low of 10.9% in 2016.
That spike has been the sharpest for African Americans, Hispanics and low-income people, and most disastrously for the risk pool, 18-25-year-olds. Experts estimate that tens of thousands of people die each year because they don’t have insurance, a number that will balloon even further if Trump and the Republican party manage to repeal Obamacare. Meanwhile, the Republican party just passed a $1.5tn tax cut, 70% of which will go to the top 1%.
Neither ABC, which reported on the story, nor the family’s GoFundMe page confirms whether Martinez has health insurance, but that might not matter. As of 2016, 40 million people and counting were underinsured, struggling to afford high out-of-pocket costs. Even with insurance, her transplants and subsequent drug regimens might not be fully covered, never mind the cost of multiple trips to and from the Mayo Center, where she is seeking treatment.
How did we reach this sordid state of affairs? Well, it’s been a long journey. While many progressive reforms were passed during the New Deal, president Franklin D Roosevelt backed off of universal healthcare for fear it would be too controversial.
Then, in 1942, a tight labor market caused by war spurred businesses to compete for workers with ever higher salaries. Fearing rampant inflation, FDR signed an executive order to freeze wages. Employers began using insurance benefits as another way to attract workers. And so, a private insurance industry arose that made profits by doling out as little care to the insured as it could get away with.
Politicians have periodically floated the idea of socialized medicine ever since, and Medicare and Medicaid did begin providing healthcare to elderly and (some) low-income Americans in 1965-6. But by this point, a powerful lobby had grown up around insurers and providers that made even these programs’ passage difficult. The recession of the 1970s shifted the balance of power from workers back to capital such that no further concessions could be extracted, and the rise of supply-side economics was the final nail in the coffin … until now?
As leftwing, populist movements have surged worldwide these past few years, one demand of American progressives has been a Medicare-for-all system that guarantees healthcare to all Americans, free at point of service. While presidential candidate Hillary Clinton painted this as a ridiculous flight of fancy as recently as 2016, the political terrain has shifted – thanks in no small part to grassroots activism – such that virtually every serious contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination supports some version of it.
As Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted on Tuesday: “What Nemiah is doing is admirable, but an 11-year-old should not have to raise money to keep her mother alive in the wealthiest country in the world. Healthcare must be a right.”
Of course, some would argue that healthcare is a right, it’s just not being acknowledged by the powers that be. But until we actually win and enforce that right, it will remain a mere abstraction.
