Arizona shooting offers lessons on health care

To the Editor:

In the wake of the horrific violence in Tucson, the newly installed House of Representatives temporarily set aside its effort to repeal the health care law that would provide medical coverage for some 40 million uninsured Americans. If Congress would also put aside the polarizing rancor over whether the madman’s actions were an inevitable consequence of the political- and media-fomented vitriol, a reasonable and civilly toned debate might consider a potential disparity in the health care coverage provided to the 13 people who were wounded but survived the frenzied assault.

Clearly, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, with the “Cadillac of coverage” Congress has provided for its own, and with the availability of legislatively enacted private laws to fill in any gaps, will have 100 percent lifetime coverage for her emergency transportation and treatment, multiple brain surgeries, extended hospitalization and, we hope, her recovery, which will no doubt include a long haul of institutional and outpatient rehabilitative, physical and occupational therapy.

But what of the other 12, fortunately less grievously injured? For those who have health insurance, will it be sufficient? Are they similarly covered for hospitalization, or surgery, or more than 30 or 60 days of in-patient rehabilitation, or 24-hour home care, or more than a specific number of therapy visits, or structural alterations to their homes for handicapped accessibility?

And what of those who might not have any coverage, whose lives, through no fault of their own, were inconceivably altered in a moment’s madness? Their families would be burdened with staggering, insurmountable medical debt — unless, of course, they qualified for Medicaid, at which point the expenses would pass to the already overburdened state.

And what of that pariah of Pima and other border counties in Arizona, the undocumented alien, who might very well have been an attendee or a passerby? Would current or proposed Arizona law allow for a denial of comparable medical care by refusing to allow payment for such a person’s treatment from the public weal?

When Congress returns to business as usual, perhaps it could spend a portion of the paucity of time allotted for debate on repealing the “job-killing health care law” to consider the consequences of its actions to its constituents.

Richard A. Benson

Oceanside