Louisville Medicine Volume 63, Issue 5 | Page 31

Dr. Ross and other members of the PNHP’s views are simple. There are some things too important to leave to the capitalist marketplace. Among those are sanitation, water, fire, police and, yes, health care. “The data is solid. For every 1,000 people uninsured, one will die unnecessarily,” said Dr. Ross. “There are 30 million people uninsured. So, 30,000 people are dying unnecessarily every year. I’m not sure what would happen if we had somebody come over and blow up 30,000 people each year, but I have a feeling we would deal with it differently.” Dr. Ross said, “This situation is a quiet disaster. These people are separated. There’s no publicity for them, but they’re out there.” Following the successful Medicare PIE event on July 30, Dr. Ross and other representatives met with medical students on campus to talk about ways to get involved and what can be learned from always being skeptical. Dr. Ross recalled a story of one of his patients who passed away unnecessarily. “He was an assistant manager at a burger shop, I won’t say which one. He had three kids, so he had to think about how to get by with the money he was making. He chose not to purchase the very paltry insurance package provided by his work. When he came to see me, he was seriously overweight. He had trouble breathing, sleeping, and edema in his legs which indicates heart failure. I told him it was a serious problem but there was no place I could send him to get a sleep study without proper insurance and he didn’t have the money to get it done.” Once a social worker became involved in the case, the man was advised to quit his job. “They said, ‘You have three dependent children. You’ll qualify for Medicaid within the month and then we can order the study. So he quit his job. But, he died in his sleep the night before his sleep study was scheduled,” Dr. Ross said. “These are the stories we see. Every doctor has stories like this, a near miss or a wounding or sometimes these stories where we lose good hard-working folks who were kicked aside by the health care system. Working with the city population, you see this stuff day after day.” Talking to his residents at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo, Dr. Ross routinely jokes about the United States having the “best health care system in the world,” emphasizing the social determinants and inadequacies of the health care system. Despite going for laughs, he somberly admits many of his colleagues believe it to be true. “We cost twice what everyone else does and we don’t do anything substantially better. We have worse mortality and some of the worst childhood health statistics and maternal mortality statistics in the world. Our system is dysfunctional because it’s too complicated. There are too many people trying to make money from it rather than look at it as a social good,” he said. In person, Dr. Ross is a whirlwind of ideas and examples and statistics, but he knows that it doesn’t matter what he alone thinks, but rather what he can do to convince others. All involved agree that the future of the PNHP and the continued prospect of a single payer system depend on new blood. Medical students and young physicians who will continue to fight and get a seat at the table are becoming increasingly important as older members can no longer maintain their level of activity. Dr. Adams spoke to the students and residents in attendance. “The most exciting thing happening in PNHP in the last five years is the student movement. The questions and worries they have are taking place across the country. What kind of practice will they have? Will their activism affect their careers? You’ll get courage and encouragement from them.” Dr. Adams encouraged each of the students to keep a lookout and get involved, saying he was so busy studying for medical school that he didn’t pay attention to the civ