Kent City Council approves “Medicare for All” resolution

After Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) students and faculty members spoke in front of Kent City Council members, the board approved their “Medicare for All” proposal during the City Council meeting on October 19.

Members of the student organization Students for a National Health Program at NEOMED first presented the proposal to the board last month. The resolution declares that the City of Kent endorses the Medicare for All Act of 2022 and that access to affordable healthcare is a human right.

Emily Huff, a second-year medical student at NEOMED, shared her experience living in London during her graduate studies, where she studied neuroscience and worked as a nurse assistant in a publicly funded National Health Service (NHS) Hospital.

Moving from the privatized U.S. Healthcare she had known to the publicized European model,

Huff said that she was able to see firsthand that universal healthcare was not an impractical fantasy, but it was a lived reality for a large majority of the first-world population.

Huff called Universal healthcare an “urgent moral necessity” and shared a personal account of meeting a mother whose daughter had an auto-immune disorder, who would not live to see her first birthday without treatment. Unfortunately, the treatment she needed cost more than $11,000 per month with her mother’s insurance.

“To me, the part that was most heartbreaking was the mother’s reaction,” said Huff. “It was not to ask how she could possibly afford this treatment, but she began to calculate based on her savings how many moths she could afford to keep her daughter alive.”

Huff continued, “No one deserves to die because they cannot afford medical treatment. Illness is not a punishment for bad choices or a failure to plan, and health is not a reward you gain through employment. It is a basic human right.”

Dr. Joseph Zarconi, clinical faculty member at NEOMED, began his testimony to the Kent City Council members by stating the claim that uninsurance and underinsurance has become a public health crisis in our country.

Dr. Zarconi, a kidney specialist, shared that he struggles with not being able to offer under or uninsured patients the same diagnostic write-up as insured patients.

For insured patience, Dr. Zarconi said he can offer able to options to slow down the progression of kidney dysfunctions, including good medical management, control of preexisting health conditions in collaboration with their primary care doctor and numerous medications as part of the chronic disease management protocol to prevent dialysis.

For uninsured patients, the case is very different, according to Dr. Zarconi. These patients often do not have access to primary care doctors and cannot afford the medications they need, causing their kidney disease to progress more rapidly.

“It is quite possible that an uninsured patient might have a treatable or fixable condition, but we have no way of finding that out. We can only resign ourselves to watching that person’s kidney dysfunction progress and get worse, and eventually to dialysis.”

Shawn Schreckengost, a senior public health student at Kent State, with a focus in public policy, economics and administration of health services also spoke on universal healthcare. Serving as the president of the Public Health Student Alliance on campus, Schreckengost said his experience and education are what led him to discuss the “unique, complex issue of health” and how the system hinders the upward mobility of so many people,  sharing that according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 1 in 10 adults are in medical debt, with millions owing more than $10,000.

“For many, this places a price on life-saving medications and procedures,” Schreckengost said. “Now, families must weigh out their options. It’s either feeding their families or taking their medications.”

Kent City Council members applauded the speakers who shared their personal accounts on why they support the “Medicare for All” proposal.

Heidi Shaffer Bish, city council member, explained that she believes the U.S. is in a stable enough place to implement “Medicare for All.”

“The time has come for this,” says Shaffer.  “We have seen the proof that having access to government-supported health care works.”

Council member Robin G. Turner shared his support of the NEOMED faculty and students’ efforts toward achieving universal healthcare.

“I need to condemn the people who brought this forward to us. It is a noble effort,” Turner said.  “I think that tonight we can do our part to start lifting people up with the most fundamental right they have, one that is not determined by where they are financially. We can do better, this country is about doing better and we have the opportunity to do better starting now.”

 

Jesse Khalil is a reporter. Contact her at jkhalil@kent.edu

Joshua Bailey is a reporter. Contact him at jbaile72@kent.edu