Public Health Care 101 Coverage

2/9/19

The smell of diesel fuel seeped through the open window. It mixed with the cold air and although we were eleven stories up staring at the wall as the compactor truck crunched metal from the never-ending construction at Houston and Broadway. I was sick from the smell and the noise inside my head and outside of our building. This is the way we sit meditation with everything going on at once. In the city there are no peaceful mountains.

I think about it all. My patients, my breath the other person’s heavy stuffy nose breathing. I hope I don’t get her cold. People are pigs. Oink it is the year of the Pig. People put their dirty hands into the snacks and walk around the table munching. That makes me slightly sick too. If they only knew biology or public health realities. Some of them would be the first to argue or comment on who should pay or how expensive health insurance is. Others sit on the side lines watching, others gingerly select without touching what they don’t want. Leaving nothing behind. Nothing left behind like germs. Cough, cough.

My job is to care for people. I know that Health care coverage is a big topic. I have heard it called Universal Coverage, Medicare for All and a host of other hybrid names. The 2020 election will revolve around this.  I urge myself not to get caught up in the side shows that will take us away from the every day reality of what it costs to get medical care.

I am a clinician among other things in life. I study human relationships in health, body, mind, self, living and dying ad nauseum. Remember the petrol fumes? As a clinician it is like being in the fumes of the living and dying cells, of self and others. Put on your mask and get up and go.

Now I must do that and urge others to go out there and get those votes and voters signed up to charter the things that will help us all. The first is to be able and healthy enough to lighten the load of suffering for those who are ill and put all our shoulders together to do it.

Get ready. Get up and go. Do something and even though we all have our favorite social projects, vote and keep your senses open and your mind clear from the offense of chatter that poisons the well in wellness. Because it is an offense, a move to distract and destroy. Sitting on the side lines is not an option for those who want to live. There is a hierarchy in the needs of humans. The first one is to be taken care of or we will not survive. Or as I like to call it, Public Health Care 101.

Diana Ji Fu Lakis