Don Grady is a CPA and Professor of Accounting at National Louis University, Chicago
Did you catch the “On the Road with the Health Wagon” segment that aired in early April on CBS 60 Minutes? It was a timely reminder that there are still numbers of Americans that are still not covered by health care insurance. The “Health Wagon” segment showed examples of those Americans who live in Appalachia, Virginia, where they are not covered by state Medicaid or Federal Medicare, and they can’t afford Obamacare. They are our fellow Americans that have fallen into the “healthcare gap”. The United States is quick to provide financial aid to foreign countries, but we haven’t figured out how to take care of ourselves yet.
In an earlier article I addressed the continuing rise in U. S. healthcare costs and the challenges the United States faces to fix the problem. The solutions to financing health care are not easy to identify and implement. However, it is not hard to find examples of those who fall into the “healthcare gap.”
The political quagmires at the Federal and State levels within the United States keep us from appropriately allocating resources to solve our national problems. The complex relationships we have with the international community cause us to commit resources elsewhere, which could have been used to resolve our domestic problems here. That is the issue at 10,000 feet. But on the other end of the scale, The “Health Wagon” in Appalachia, the progress is being made at chipping away the iceberg.
The “Health Wagon” exists because of Federal grants and corporate sponsors who have stepped up to the plate. What is sad about the “Health Wagon” situation is that the same nurse practitioners who drive the “Health Wagon” each day and provide health care to patients at each stop are the same nurse practitioners who “write” at night for Federal Fund Grants and appeal to corporate donors to keep the wagon rolling. There are too few good Samaritans with the spirit, skills, and ambition to make things happen. While the politicians get a better handle on the big picture, we could use more “Health Wagons” out there to care for our fellow Americans.
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