By: Laurie Essig, VT for Single Payer, Supporter
The inability of the U.S. health care system or the federal government to deliver free and fair access to the threat of a pandemic flu should have Americans angry and demanding universal coverage.
Yesterday my daughters and I went to a vaccination center in Montreal and got the swine flu vaccine. We are not Canadian residents, but Vermonters living in Montreal for most of this year. When I called the very helpful hot line number at “Pandemic Canada” and explained our situation, the woman was extremely helpful. I asked if there was some way we could pay for the vaccine or do it privately because I didn’t want to abuse the largess of the Canadian government. She answered that there was no way to do the vaccine privately since it is only available free and at the vaccination clinics.
So we traveled to a clinic, presented some documents that showed we are living in Montreal for now, and they got us a shot, along with the hundreds of other people there. It was efficient and free.
Cut to the U.S., where my children and I live most of the time. The vaccine is often impossible to get. There are no free clinics in the city where I live, let alone a push to get everyone vaccinated, because the vaccine itself is in short supply.
What exactly happened in the U.S. that most Americans do not have access to the vaccine? Part of it has got to be greed (it always is when we leave it up to the market). But the other part is what can be called the problem of elite networks. Instead of the federal government setting up centers, running huge campaigns to encourage people to get the vaccine, and making it widely available and free, they let the local authorities make the arrangements. The result is a system of privilege and elite access that is typical for this country.
Talking to a friend at a private university in the U.S., I asked if she will get the vaccine. “Oh, we got the vaccine back in October. Because someone at the university has connections to the CDC.” What? Before pregnant women and young children got the shot, privileged university students and employees got it because of connections? Somebody went to Harvard Medical School or whatever elite school with someone else and therefore got access to the vaccine before everyone else?
Cut back to Canada. In Montreal, first young children, people with compromised immune systems and pregnant women. Then elementary-school-aged kids. Then 11-19 -year-olds. Then everyone else. Including 3 foreigners with no insurance cards.
But in the U.S. the people with money and connections get access first and the rest of us are left behind. U.S. health care is the best in the world for the rich among us. But for the rest of us, we can’t even get a vaccine against a pandemic flu. And in Canada, which supposedly has a scary and awful health care system, a huge chunk of the population is getting vaccinated freely and fairly.
(Click here for a longer and previously published version of this blog.