Cindy Lange-Kubick: One little word, and one big problem

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It was a typo.

One missing letter.

A measly dropped “R” that changed the meaning of one word in my Sunday column —  the story of Dr. Dave Paulus making house calls to a dying Russian immigrant — into something else entirely.

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Causing this sentence —“When this clinic for undeserved and uninsured opened, he became its medical director” — to provoke this response:

“Um, rather than UN-deserved, didn’t you mean UNDER-served? I think that maybe everyone deserves health care.”

Clearly, reader, you were correct.

I did mean underserved. And that is what the People’s Health Center, where Dr. Paulus works, does: It serves people who are underserved and uninsured.

We could leave it at that.

Put it on the list of editing lessons learned. Wait for David Letterman to trot it out during his "Small Town News" routine.

But it made me think about something else.

How it could be that this rich nation, a country that spends so many billions on health care, could underserve so many?

How it could be that our life expectancy ranking is lower than that of Japan, Canada, Italy, Israel, Germany, Costa Rica, Australia and a dozen other countries?

How could it be that we aren’t all appalled that — according to a recent report — two Nebraskans die every week because they don’t have health coverage?

Or that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private health insurance?

Do we think some people don’t deserve health care?

Or think they get the health care they deserve because they can’t afford better?

It rather looks that way.

Because if we didn’t, maybe we’d be doing more about the sorry state of our system.

In 2006 and 2007, 437,000 Nebraska residents under 65 — one in four — were uninsured for some or all of those 24 months.

Many more worked jobs that didn’t allow them the luxury of being able to afford co-pays, deductibles or medical premiums.

At my house we sent the dentist a check almost every month for what seemed like forever, paying off the consequences of bad genes and too many sweets.

Now many dentists and doctors require payment at the counter, gladly accepting MasterCard and Visa.

They’d like to see  a better health care system, too.

A Nebraska Medical Association taskforce is working to make that happen, recommending health care reform in Nebraska without waiting for the federal government.

In Lincoln, doctors, dentists and nurses work gratis at the Clinic with a Heart to provide care for people in need.

And the People’s Health Center works with patients, who pay on a sliding scale, to make health care affordable.

They understand that getting people in the door to take care of small problems prevents major medical expenses later — the kind of expenses, if you want to measure it in pocketbooks, that comes out of the wallets of people with insurance.

“The health insurance issue is huge for many of the people we see,” says Sue Hinrichs, director of the Lincoln Action Program.

Nearly 75 percent of the people who come to them for help are working, but taking care of their health falls by the wayside when lined up with utility bills and $3.40 gasoline and the cost of groceries.

Do they deserve health care?

“It’s a very heavy political issue. Is this a responsibility society has to care for its own or is it an individual responsibility?”

Hinrichs knows where she falls.

“I think we need to take care of each other.”

In the meantime, people are underserved.

It’s pretty simple, said Lisa Olivares of the People’s Health Center, who sees those people walk in the doors on North 27th Street every day.

“They need more money. They need more resources. They need more programs.”

How can it be that a rich country can’t provide that?

I’m sure it’s very complicated.

But here’s one number: In 2005, pharmaceutical marketers spent $4.86 billion on consumer advertising.

And that’s not a typo.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.