Here’s what would make all mothers really happy

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, May 10, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Today is Mother’s Day.

For those of you who had forgotten, it is not too late to call the florist, run out to the candy store or make special dinner reservations. I am sure the mother in your life will appreciate the gesture.

But, today, I think I have a better idea for what we should get the women who gave us birth, the women who bore our children and the women who will or have given us grandchildren, nieces, nephews or just young friends.

That’s because I believe that if you ask the moms in our lives what they really want for themselves and their families and friends, they will tell you it will be the one thing they cannot buy in a candy store, shop for in a department store or enjoy at the fanciest restaurant. What they would want for themselves and their loved ones is ... good health.

That is the one commodity in this life that you just can’t buy. And it is the one thing in this life that we cannot live without. At least not the way we would like to live.

For the past few weeks I have been on an investigative trip, looking into the health care system in this country, the way it is delivered, the way it is accessed and the way it is paid for. And what I have found — this should come as no surprise — is that health care and its delivery are based on a system that is most unfair.

And I don’t think our moms, if we ask them up close and personal, would condone how we do health care for very long.

I read in the newspaper recently that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg thinks that another woman should be appointed to the Supreme Court (Ginsburg made her comments to USA Today before Justice David Souter announced last week that he would be stepping down). She said that since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the high court has missed the sensitivity of a woman’s point of view and that has adversely affected the opinions the Supreme Court delivers. It isn’t that Justice Ginsburg doesn’t represent well the female consciousness; it is, rather, that in a man’s world there needs to be a decibel level that two women, not one, can provide before they will listen!

I believe the same is true when it comes to health care. No mother can stand by and watch children suffer from deadly diseases knowing that in many cases the difference between whether those kids live or die is the quality and quantity of health care they receive.

No mother can watch the loved ones of others suffering deadly diseases and not want to provide the best care available without regard to where they live, how much that care costs or who is going to pay for it. It is a motherly instinct to heal the sick and ask those other questions later.

And just so you don’t think that women are the only ones who think this way, no son, no husband, no father can stand by while a loved one suffers from disease more than necessary just because their access to quality care is denied. It can be denied because of geographical inability to get it, it can be denied because of an inability to pay or it can be denied because of an insensitivity of those charged with making the decisions at insurance companies, for example, about whether to approve lifesaving tests and treatments.

When these issues are up close and personal, only the most inhumane among us could argue to deny health care.

And, yet, that is what we do in this country. Sure, we couch the argument in terms of higher taxes, socialistic policies, political expediency and priorities of government activity. But, the bottom line is that for far too long, we have managed to defer the solutions to universal health care for some other time, for some other president, for some other political cycle.

And people — our moms, our wives, our children — die for lack of health care while we are arguing the fine points.

As a son — especially at my advancing age — I am most fortunate. My mother, Barbara, is still with me as is my mother-in-law, Rachel. I wish them both a most happy Mother’s Day. They are around to enjoy their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren because they have had access to health care they could afford.

But what about another son’s mother? One who did not have the ability, either financially or geographically, to access that care? The chances are they would not be here to celebrate Mother’s Day with their kids.

And what of the wives, sisters, daughters and granddaughters who are no longer present because they could not get the kind of lifesaving treatment that was available to others but not to them? What do we tell their families? Their mothers?

I am a man, that is true. But I cannot abide other men telling me anymore that health care is not something we should provide to all of our citizens, regardless of their ability to pay. If we gave this health care challenge to the mothers in our society, it would have been solved long ago.

We can afford wars that do not end and we can afford to bail out banks that do not lend. So don’t tell me we cannot afford to provide quality health care to the children of our country’s mothers.

Don’t tell me and don’t tell my mom. Not on this day. And not on any other day.

P.S. A very happy and healthy Mother’s Day to my dear wife, Myra, and to Amy, the mother of our grandchildren.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.