Just how stupid does one have to be to believe that the US health care system is the best? Sure, if you are Charles Prince (shamed Citi CEO) or maybe Lee Raymond and money is no object, it's great. How can we be such a wealthy country yet leave so many people behind? I must have missed those Christian lessons that highlighted why it was good to evolve into such a nasty, mean-spirited, me-me-me country. We leave so many behind yet shower praise on the greediest. Aren't we just a clever bunch?
Mark Windsor looks exhausted. For a week he's been undergoing radiation treatment on a cancerous tumor in his neck. A metal rod fused to his spine keeps his head stable. His muscles there are gone, the result of multiple failed surgeries to rid him of his disease. He can't turn his head sideways or look up or down. So his look stays fixed, despite his fatigue.
If I probably had gotten some good treatment several years ago I probably would have been cured," Windsor said from his home in Atlanta, Georgia.
The reason he didn't get care sooner -- he couldn't afford it, because he didn't have insurance. Windsor, a self-employed photographer, has had bone cancer -- a rare chondrosarcoma -- for more than 25 years. At 52, that's almost half his life. While he's found help from a few generous doctors, his efforts to survive have often been desperate. And now he's learned, largely in vain.
