Health Reform is a Civil Rights Issue

Author : Toni Bigby

Consumer Advocacy at CareSource Over 11 years of experience working with Ohio’s Medicaid program promoting the importance and availability of health care coverage for Ohio’s underserved populations; Responsible for working with statewide consumer advocacy groups to advance key initiatives to provide value-added benefits to CareSource members; Charged with engaging members to bring their voice to the forefront to inform internal business operations

Jan 18th, 2010 | by Toni Bigby

Martin Luther King, if he had been given the time, must eventually have tackled the health care issue as an essential civil right.  As a nation, we’ve focused so much on the tactics and details—public options, mandates, “Cadillac plans” and so on—that we may be forgetting why increasing health care accessibility is important to us as a nation.

So this is just a reminder for all of us: without health care, personal growth and success are limited indeed.  Children with sensory or behavioral problems are not treated, or whose simple illnesses are not cared for, cannot learn.  Adults with a chronic disease (like diabetes or asthma) can earn a living—but only if they have the care and medications they need.  Families that lose a parent to a disease that could have been cured if caught earlier, suffer consequences that can hardly be measured – stability, opportunity, potential.

If we are serious about equal opportunity, education, stable families, social justice at any level, we must embrace health care accessibility as an essential civil right.