By Tiara Etheridge

Every time I form an opinion, I see something in the media that makes me question myself and wonder: who is right?

USA Today released an article on Houston’s health care crisis yesterday, accessible at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-18-texas-health-care_N.htm?POE=click-refer.

According to the article, 30 percent of the Harris County population, which includes Houston, is uninsured, the highest rate among the nation’s top 10 metropolitan areas.

With one in three people uninsured, the health care system is overwhelmed to the detriment of the people, and Texas' surging population is partially to blame.

Illegal immigrants represent 21 percent of the county’s public caseload at hospitals and care centers serving the Houston area’s 1.1 million uninsured residents along Harris County Hospital District. In contrast, illegal immigrants only make up 6 percent of the area’s population.

So to a certain extent, the right-wing conservatives are correct in saying illegal immigrants cost Americans tax dollars in health care. That I will contend. But the other 79 percent of the caseload for Harris County Hospital District belongs to legal American citizens. The sheer amount of Americans without insurance, 15 percent, is indicative of the health care epidemic in our country.

World's most advanced medical technology available!...if you can pay

Our country's medical technology is the most advanced in the world, yet we are the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. In fact, 28 industrialized nations have single-payer universal health care and Germany has multi-payer universal health care, akin to the system President Bill Clinton proposed for the United States.

The United States spends at least 40 percent more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country that has universal health care.

In addition, single-payer universal health care would actually save $100 billion to $200 billion per year despite covering all the uninsured and increasing health care benefits, according to federal studies by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting office. Why? Lower administrative costs. The United States spends 50 percent to 100 percent more on administration than single-payer systems.

The Czars known as insurance companies

So if a universal health care system would provide service to all and actually save costs, why does our country still deny access to health care based on ability to pay? One word: money. Health insurance companies make a gob of it gouging the American pocket for premiums, and they’re not about to relinquish their position. So they use financially-influential lobbyists to persuade our government to experience memory lapse when it comes to the public interest and health.

Even those who have insurance are not safe from the dire red tape. This spring, I wrote an article about an OU researcher, Dr. Zheng Ping Guan, who died because OU’s insurance company, Aetna, refused to pay for a bone marrow transplant unless he went to an approved hospital— in Missouri. Aetna made no provisions to pay for transportation, and the surgery only had a two-week time frame to even have a chance of being affective. This story is accessible at http://hub.ou.edu/articles/article.php?article_id=1861134758&search_id=1558273841, and Guan’s obituary is accessible at http://hub.ou.edu/articles/article.php?article_id=1111536572&search_id=1089459090.

Before the mud slinging begins, you can’t blame illegal immigrants for all the problems in our country.

Quite simply, our country’s health care system is an embarrassment, and the illegal immigrants have little or nothing to do with that factor. People die neglected and waiting for treatment— to such an extent they call 911 in hospitals and ambulances in futile desperation.

Our government is at fault, the health insurance companies are at fault, and… hate to say it, but we are at fault as well. For too long, we have lamented the structure of the health care system but have done nothing about it. (With the exception of Massachusetts, which is currently implementing a system to insure all of its residents.)

If you feel vehemently about this, you should let your voice be heard and remind those in power that our country is a democracy and you are the one who put them in office— not the insurance companies— and you can easily strip them of their position in the next election.