The Post columnist's tale: Michelle Singletary writes the nationally syndicated personal finance column, The Color of Money, which appears in The Washington Post.
Needless to say, it's an "award-winning column."
This Sunday, Singletary wrote a column which ought to be widely read. It concerns the way she and her four siblings were raised by their heroic grandmother in West Baltimore, thanks in no small part to the availability of Medicaid.
The column starts like this. It's truly must-read work:
SINGLETARY (3/19/17): When my siblings and I went to live with my grandmother, we were a sickly bunch.We think you should take it from there.
There were five of us. My older sister was 8. I was 4. The sister under me was 3, and my twin brothers were 1.
We were all undernourished.
We taught fifth grade in West Baltimore for nine years. West Baltimore is full of world-class people like Singletary's grandmother.
The world is full of people like that. Her granddaughter's column deserves to be pondered.
My grandmother raised my mom with the help of welfare dollars. Mom spent much of a year of her childhood in a public polio hospital.
ReplyDeleteWhen she grew up, she went to college and became a public health nurse. As she told it, one of the things that made her job possible was the city's network of public clinics. (This was long before medicaid.) A lot of her work was visiting infants. She could refer the moms and children to clinics if they needed it, knowing they would be able to go.
Where have we gone wrong?
Demographics have changed. Welfare no longer supports only widows and orphans. It supports drug addicts and alcoholics, homeless mentally ill and transients such as runaway children. They have different medical needs and different ability to follow through on treatment. There are still public outreach clinics in immigrant neighborhoods, such as East Los Angeles. There are also community outreach clinics to prevent emergency room recidivism. Some are public charities. Doctors and nurses work in them as volunteers, as do young people preparing for medical careers. (Pay attention hardindr)
DeleteAnonymousMarch 22, 2017 at 1:36 AM -- I remember begin taken to such a clinic in the Bronx when I was young. I think clinics like that are a good way for the government to provide medical care. In fancier terms, single provider is better than single payer.
ReplyDeleteIMHO the ACA system is far worse than either of those. It's filled with flaws. Unfortunately, the current Republican plan doesn't fix the flaws. A better approach would be to abolish the entire ACA law and start over.
Abolish private health insurance, and start over.
DeleteFixed it for you.