The 11 cent atonement

That will be $1.89. I handed the clerk $2 and she returned a penny and a dime. As I turned to leave, I was confronted by an all too familiar thing — the plastic jar with a slot cut through the top to facilitate the passage of money. On the front, for all to see, was the photograph of someone facing terrible health problems and a description detailing the huge medical and financial challenges the family faced.

Over the years, I have seen countless jars placed on counter tops — plastic monuments to the cruelty of a failed American health care system. For 23 years, I owned and operated Tri City Quick Stop, during which time I hosted countless such jars in my store. Their stories varied only in the facts of the case — the toddler with leukemia, the women facing breast cancer, the worker permanently crippled with physical and financial disabilities were but a few of the tales they told.

One for each till for a total of two was our rule. Too many and customers would have a hard time laying out their purchases. And yet, the demand was always greater than the space available. Often I had to choose who to give space to. The severity of the case, age (child vs. adult) or gender (woman vs. man)? These questions were best faced by others better equipped to decide who was most worthy.

I defy you to look at these jars and not think of your own situation. I had health insurance covering my wife and me. More than $1,100 a month for a policy with a $10,000 deductible. There is a better, more accurate, term for this than health insurance. It is assets insurance to protect our home and business from the costs of a major medical problem.

I was lucky that I had the wherewithal to handle the premiums, but the high cost was insufficient to allow peace of mind. Insurance companies are famous for finding ways to deny claims, and the angst I felt allowed a connection to the greater fears represented by those jars.

The facts are well known but bear repeating: 47 million currently uninsured and 14,000 added each day. This will, no doubt, add many unpaid emergency room visits that will drive insurance premiums even higher, making health insurance unaffordable for more people. It's a cycle we have lived with for too long.

As we go through this debate concerning healthcare, each of us must consider the moral dimension the issue represents. Individual responsibility versus collective responsibility define the parameters of the debate. Are we, as a society morally responsible to provide health insurance if it is denied for conditions over which we have no control, or if it is unaffordable and beyond our means?

Collective responsibility has been the domain of health insurance companies. But are they answering their mandate when they are allowed to deny insurance for health- or age-related issues, or when they disappear at a time when they are most needed? Currently 75 percent of all medical-caused bankruptcies happen to people with health insurance. Surely the answer doesn't lie in more plastic jars.

One could reasonably ask what right do people have to demand healthcare? One answer is that they have already paid for it through bonding obligation for hospitals and training facilities (universities and tax-supported health research grants, for example) and income tax dollars dedicated to all health-related matters.

Studies show that 60 percent of health costs are covered by tax dollars. In this sense everyone has already invested in healthcare. Having so spent, how can it be denied when misfortune strikes? Limited insurance options and high deductibles lead many to forgo care. Private health insurance companies have had decades to get it right and have failed.

If they had used the money they spent to hinder reform to lobby for reforms that would make their industry more efficient and healthcare affordable, their business model would have become more inclusive while remaining profitable, and those 47 million people wouldn't have reason to complain. Having failed their right to continue as they have must be seriously challenged.

America is No. 1 in the amount spent for healthcare, and yet we are No. 37 when results are measured. As more people join the ranks of the uninsured, the nation's ranking will continue to deteriorate, resulting in yet a sicker nation. Writing in the Aug. 3 issue or Newsweek, Louise Thomas writes, "The health of the individual and the nation are intertwined and dependent — and a sick nation requires intervention."

As I stand there holding my penny and my dime, I remember the faces of all those people collecting the meager offerings deposited in the jars on my counter, faces filled with fear and humiliation knowing full well that the money collected would not really help.

Faced with that jar, I feel conflicted. How can I answer our moral obligation — am I my brother's keeper? My prayer is that we pass legislation that gives them real relief. In the meantime I hope for a sense of absolution as I listen to the sound of my coins joining the others in the jar and, like the lighting of a candle, the spinning of the prayer wheel and the chiming of the temple bell I wait for that sensation — will I feel cleansed?

Robert Harris lives in Whitefish.