Talk about health care …

While we’re thinking about the millions of children whose health care becomes more difficult or impossible with the president’s veto of the SCHIP bill, give a thought, too, to the people who do not survive their encounters with our health care system.

Edwidge Danticat’s uncle, for instance, who died in the Krome immigrant detention center for no good reason. She has a book out about this, powerfully told in the Miami Herald at this link and other places recently. Some of the comments at the link are of the viciously anti-immigrant variety. Adult supervision suggested.

Another victim: Martin Lee Anderson, 14-year-old inmate of a boot camp in northern Florida, who was beaten by guards for a half-hour. Not exactly health care, you say? What about the nurse who was present?

As we fix the health insurance business in the near or middle-distance future, let’s not forget that government health care is not the perfect answer.

UPDATE: Airports need to be considered along with hospitals as venues for critical health care. You'd think that people traveling should be in pretty good order, but in fact they may be in delicate condition. Roger Cohen's column in the Monday NY Times reminded me of the recent death in the Phoenix airport of Carol Ann Gottbaum. She became hysterical after missing a flight and was shackled and left alone in a holding cell, where she died. The column has a memorable phrase describing airports as "temples of zealotry." Remember the poor deranged man shot to death getting off a plane in Miami a few years ago? Here's the link to Cohen's column.

Somehow, we look down on some other cultures for lack of respect for life.