BOB HERBERT: When Dollars Trump Compassion

[kevinmc]

You won’t see these stories on television, but Marian Wright Edelman and Dr. Irwin Redlener could talk to you all day and all night about children whose lives have been lost or ruined because they didn’t have health insurance.

This is not a situation one associates with a so-called advanced country. That you can have sick children wasting away in the United States, the wealthiest nation on the planet, because medical treatment that could relieve their suffering is withheld by men and women with dollar signs instead of compassion in their eyes is beyond unconscionable.

Ms. Edelman is the president of the Children’s Defense Fund, and Dr. Redlener is president of the Children’s Health Fund.

Both are appalled at the embarrassing fact that nine million American children have no health coverage at all. Among them are children with diabetes, chronic asthma, heart conditions, life-threatening allergies and so on. In many instances they are left untreated until it is too late.....

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/06/bob-herbert-when-dollars-trump.html

[unblock]

1. it's not entirely fair to fix the evil gaze upon those who chose dollars over compassion

the fact of the matter is that, given the choice, most of us would choose the dollars. oh, it's easy to say "not me", but that's how we've been raised and programmed, and when we get the more complete picture, we eventually have compassion for the ones who choose dollars -- many of them are just trying to feed their own family as well (no, i'm not counting the ultra-rich ceos.)

the problem is that they are put in the position to choose between dollars and compassion in the first place!!

either take profit out of the equation or give people a profit motive to distribute compassion rather than to withhold it.