Spending time in Scandinavia was a great break for me…having a change in my routine, however, didn’t change my level or intensity of concerns. Everyone with whom I could engage in conversation, was talking about the health insurance crisis in America (among other things, like wars and economies). While many elderly already have medicare, those of us not yet on medicare, or perhaps too young to even contemplate qualifying for medicare, remain unsafe if not doubtful about what kind of care we will get if we need it. Personally, I was and am baffled by the disparities between European health care policies and practices and those now under scrutiny here at home.

How is it possible that every other industrialized country takes care of their citizens medical needs and we shun the idea..?

Iceland, for example, led the way in national economic collapse a year ago. The whole country was victimized by greed, bad investments, and failed banks. And, to make things clearer, there was no FDIC insurance: People lost millions of Krona…dollars to them…and had and will have no recourse nor reimbursement. Savings were just lost, as if none of it had existed. The value of the Icelandic Krona fell by 50%. All businesses dependent on imports froze and remain frozen: imported products doubled in cost overnight. All of this, and yet not one person is without health care coverage…Not a single man, woman, or child, whether employed or not has to even worry about it.

We met with old two friends in Norway who do not know each other, and who have lived there for decades. Neither can return to the U.S. for the primary reason that they cannot afford health insurance. One had prostate cancer just two years ago…and, while treatment is completed and his prognosis excellent…he knows that having had cancer, he cannot afford the insurance premiums. The other, while never having had cancer, is a human resources professional now unemployed….so, this is obvious: no job, no insurance. Only in America.

I was somewhat relieved that the health insurance companies showed their hand by threatening to raised premiums if insurance was not legally mandated for everyone…just the threat of escalating prices created more momentum for a public option.

Please understand, that I have no malice towards insurance company employees nor their primary mission. In my research I found a 1916 paper presented to the American Medical Association (Rabinow, ‘Health Insurance and Public Health,” 1016, AMA) in the US. The explanation at that time was the insurance was a means of distributing financial losses caused by illness and disease among many instead of only one person. What was being debated was “social health insurance” that implied “cooperation, control and financial assistance.” (You can find the document through Google Books…free download.) THe paper was not necessarily pro socialize medicine…but, I was stunned that we are approaching almost a century of discussions without resolution.

Thus, replacing “social health insurance” has been for-profit health insurance , a market-driven commodity, when, in my opinion, it should be a non-profit utility…like power, water, and all other services we all need to live. Furthermore, there is just too much incentive to exploit the sick. Imagine saying, “Yea! An epidemic, just what the quarterly report needs!!”

So, in my estimation, this is the final battle-ground of values: money vs health; market-driven vs service-driven; insured vs uninsured; life vs death. Remember months ago, I had brought up the issue of whether everyone should be insured and why the poorest uninsured child poses a global threat? The H1N1 Virus began with the poor health of one child in Mexico, causing a global pandemic. That is why none of us can afford to not take care of everyone. We just live too close, travel too much, and interact too often. The world is too small to simply chose to deny healthcare to any group.

If all we did were to change the For-profits to Non-profits, the involvement of public interest would be there to oversee (as all non-profits are watched over because of their tax exempt status) and stock-holders would be exchanged for stake-holders…meaning, all of us would own all of IT!

An article in the New York Times this week pointed out that Hawaii has had employer-based, required insurance for 35 years…and saves money, everyone is healthier…even though everything is expensive in Hawaii. How do they do it???

At any rate, I’ve returned and rejuvenated…and inspired by spending time looking at how everyone else lives. Nonetheless, I remain disturbed by the fact that health is a luxury, not an assumption, that medical care is money-based not need-based, that being healthy seems to be a luxury for those who can afford it, and that in this most advanced and brilliant country in which I live, we cannot seem to figure this out.