Fwd: Awesome letter on health care as a right

[John Gear]

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Gear <gea...@gmail.com>
Date: September 27, 2012 8:14:15 AM PDT
Subject: Awesome letter on health care as a right

To The Editor:

  In 2010, the Oregon House rejected HR100, proposing a constitutional

  amendment that access to health care is a fundamental right.In 2011,

  the legislature passed, HB2721, which eliminates reliance on

  spiritual treatment as defense to certain crimes in which victim is

  under 18 years of age.As a result ofHB2721, in 2012, Brandi and

  Russel Bellew were prosecuted  for the tragic ( I say "tragic"

  because it was apparently preventable) death of their 16-year-old

  son, Austin Sprout.After an expensive seven month prosecution, the

  Bellews pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and were

  sentenced to probation. Unsaid, in this scenario, is the fact that

  some 500 Oregonians die each year from lack of access to health care.

  It is a strange irony in our, supposedly, morally/ethically based

  legal system, that the same legislators who believed they had a

  moral obligation to designate a lack of access to care, based on

  religious beliefs, to be criminal, apparently believe that a lack of

  access to care for those who have no religious conflict is perfectly

  acceptable.I fully agree that the bellows should have made available

  to their son the medical care that might have saved his

  life.However, the Bellows are no more guilty of criminal negligence

  than are all those legislators who rejected HR100 and continue to

  ignore the people who suffer and die from lack of access to

  care.Perhaps, in the future, the Oregon legislature will embrace the

  concept that health care is a human right.

  Marc Shapiro