If she could, she would do this twice a day, like the doctors recommend. But each treatment costs $80, money she cannot afford. So she goes once a day, some days.

Tammy Weasenforth is 52 and unemployed. Since she doesn’t have health insurance, she applied for Medicaid a year ago but hasn’t been approved yet. For now, she has a place to stay, but that could change any moment. She’s been homeless before.

Tammy’s situation is not rare. Most people who are unemployed and homeless or have been homeless in the past are also uninsured. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), 55 percent of the homeless population have no medical insurance.

Healthcare is not just a challenge for homeless people – it can also contribute to making them homeless in the first place.

“Say you are a construction guy and you have a stroke or you develop severe arthritis, then you’re not able to do day labor any more – but you are still not eligible for Medicaid,” says Randy Stacey, director of the Helping Hands Clinic in Gainesville, a clinic that provides free medical and psychiatric care to the poor and destitute.

In such a case, emergency rooms across the country are required by law to see patients in need of immediate medical care, but there is never a follow-up, making it very likely the condition will return, Stacey says.

This happened to a woman Stacey knows, who is 56 and has terminal cancer. Last year she had a 13-hour surgery to remove a tumor from the roof of her mouth, removing part of her tongue and jaw as well, all while living in the woods. The hospital was obligated to do the surgery, but back in the woods her chances of infection were very high, making effective recuperation much less likely.

“You can’t get care until you are urgently ill, so it really isn’t a good system,” he says. “If they took care of you in the beginning, they would save money in the long run.”

The majority of the most common diseases homeless people suffer can be prevented, like heart disease and diabetes, or respiratory infections like bronchitis and emphysema. These are very common because of smoking, sleeping outside and cold nights. Frequent falls, cuts and scrapes also get easily out of hand. One man, for example, had an infection from a cut he sewed up himself with needle and thread.

With Medicaid, homeless people can get a prescription at a hospital, but they won’t have money to pay for medicines. Seroquel, for example, a drug that treats depression, PTSD and schizophrenia, costs $400 for 30 pills.

Tammy knows how hard it is to manage a disease without money, and not just from her lung cancer. In the seven years she has been living in Gainesville, Fla., she has broken her back two times. The last time was three years ago on Nov. 1st around noon. She was riding a brand new orange-and-blue bike a minister had given to her. Then a car hit her from behind, and the driver quickly disappeared.

Tammy filed a report with the police. A hit-and-run accident is considered a third-degree felony under state law. If the police don’t find the person responsible, the victim is entitled to $14,000 in compensation, but only if he or she is employed. But since Tammy didn’t have a job, she didn’t qualify for it.

Her voice fills with frustration, but it doesn’t crack; it grows stronger. “The system is supposed to be about rehabilitation,” she says, “but it really is designed to keep you in.”

She broke two ribs and had to spend three days in the hospital. Afterwards, she got a prescription for a $1,500 brace. She couldn’t afford it though, so she had to lie still for six weeks. Luckily, she had roommates who helped her with food and basic necessities.

Laws that criminalize homelessness abound in Gainesville. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the NCH, named Gainesville the fifth meanest city towards homeless people in 2010. The list is compiled taking in consideration the city’s laws that criminalize homelessness; laws that, for example, make it illegal to sit, sleep or place personal belongings in a public space. Three of the top five meanest cities are in Florida.

In 2007, the Homeless Access to Recovery through Treatment Act, or HART, was introduced in Congress, but it stalled after it was referred to a House subcommittee. The bill would have strengthened and expanded substance abuse and mental health services to indigent people and also ensure people discharged from rehabilitation facilities went into stable housing, a key step in eradicating homelessness at the root.

Over the years, there has been conservative opposition to such legislation. Why should working taxpayers pay for services for people who are not working or paying taxes?

“It’s actually an investment because these permanent housing support programs reduce costs in the long term,” said Sabrina Edgington, program and policy specialist at the National Health Care for the Homeless Council in Washington, D.C.

If homeless people don’t have to return to the street after a car accident or chemotherapy then they can recuperate, she argues. They won’t use costly emergency support systems like ERs and emergency shelters as much, reducing public costs and reducing hospital use by 50 percent, according to the Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community.

Many days Tammy is in so much pain from the radiation that she cannot leave her Section 8 apartment. This makes it harder to find a job. But she tries because she knows that as long as she is unemployed she won’t have enough money for the required radiation treatments to recuperate – so that she can get a job.

This cycle is her life, but the pain doesn’t show. She still smiles. She jokes, she laughs. She remembers a time before her problems started 14 years ago.

She and her husband owned Apple Mountain Engineers in Linden, Va., where they worked installing and repairing sewage pipes. Back then she earned $850 a week.

But then at 33, her husband Jim died from an aneurysm. She was left alone with their 8-year-old daughter and 12-year-old twin boys. Everyone kept saying, “If Jim were here, things would be different.” She couldn’t live with that, so she sold her share of the company.

Problems began and so did her depression. She was prescribed Xanax, a drug that treats anxiety, depression and panic attacks. By breakfast she would take six Xanax pills, and by the end of the day she would finish a 12-pack of beer. Everything started to deteriorate: her savings, her relationship with her kids, her sanity. She was taking the prescribed antidepressant, but something wasn’t right. She was more and more depressed. She felt the pills had something to do with it, so she stopped taking them.

Tammy admits her lung cancer may be self-inflicted since she smoked crack and cigarettes for a long time. Now, she is over drugs and depression. But she is not over being unemployed. She’s not used to it; she doesn’t like it. Since she was 14 years old she had had a job, until now. In the past few weeks she has worked cleaning houses and taking care of people with disabilities. She also worked tending horses during the night, but the man who hired her never paid her and left her stranded in Ocala.

Recently, however, life has been getting a little better for her. Her cancer is now 27 percent in remission.

“That’s got to be good, right?” she says. “I don’t know what it means but I’ll take it over 0 percent.”

When her radiation begins at 3:30 p.m., at the University of Florida Shands Davis Cancer Center, she feels like she’s in a tanning bed – except she’s secured down and her skin is cooking. They offer pain medication, but she doesn’t want any of it, she has taken enough medications and drugs in her life.

By now, she has had IV with stabilizing fluids injected in her left forearm so many times, the tattoo she has there in memory of her husband is ruined. But she doesn’t mind today. She is feeling strong.

“I’m going to beat this,” she says. “I’m confident I’m going to make it.”

Eric Dreaming Trout through the window of Otter and Trout Trading Company with University Ave. in reflection. Photo by Matt Walsh

Disclaimer:This article does not purport to make any claims about the scientific validity of Western or traditional medicine. Always consult a physician before beginning any herbal or other alternative medicinal regimen.

Jennie Strickland needed help. She is uninsured and was searching for an alternative to the high-priced medications available at conventional drug stores.

Strickland, 23, had a 103-degree fever. She had been suffering from the flu for days when she decided to make a trip to Otter and Trout Trading Company, a small store on University Avenue that sells botanical medicine.

“I was stuck in bed for three days,” said Strickland, a Mother’s Pub employee and Santa Fe College student.

Kimberili White Otter, the owner of Otter and Trout Trading Company, recommended wormwood tea to Strickland. Wormwood tea is said to enhance the immune system and rid the body of worms.

“I was fine the very next day,” Strickland said. “Every time I go to her she has an answer.”

The Native American-based store provides a healing and helping hand to people of all ages. It also provides an alternative form of medicine for those who can’t afford health insurance or the pricey bills for prescription drugs.

Many doctors remain skeptical about the use of herbs for treating medical conditions. Patients become afraid to tell their practitioners that they are taking alternative forms of medicine because the herbs are unconventional.

“Most doctors are not open to new forms of medicine,” Otter said.

Herbal remedies are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Herbs sold at shopping markets and drugstores usually have additives or are diluted with other products. The factories that mass-produce quantities of botanicals do not have to disclose the extent to which the products are diluted.

Otter and trout both insist that any botanical mixed with alcohol is dangerous, including both kava and wormwood, which is the key ingredient of the drink, Absinthe.

Kimberili White Otter. Photo by Matt Walsh.

Eric Dreaming Trout, co-owner of Otter and Trout, explained that there are not enough herbs to be able to mass-produce them like they do in supermarkets.

“It is important to look at the packages,” Trout said. “If there are additives, then it’s probably not concentrated enough to do anything for you.”

It is also important that patients tell doctors what they are taking because some herbal remedies can interact dangerously with certain prescription drugs.

“We are not doctors here, and we do not prescribe items,” Otter said.

Otter offers consultations to clients who want to take herbal remedies. She also reminds patients to inform their physicians of what they are taking.

Nowadays, people are encouraged to take expensive prescription drugs when they have an anxiety attack. They are prescribed medications when they have trouble concentrating. They are given prescriptions when they are depressed. They are sometimes carelessly prescribed medicines that have an endless list of dangerous side effects.

Herbs are an earthly alternative to those dangerous and expensive medications.

Some herbs also have side effects, but the effects of herbs are not comparable to those of most anxiety prescriptions, which can include mania and hallucinations.

In 2000, Canada banned kava, an herb used to treat stress and anxiety, because researchers found evidence of the herb being harmful to the liver. Later many European countries followed suit.

After the cases were thoroughly studied, researchers found that kava was not the cause of liver damage in the
cases reported. Most people who reported a liver condition while using kava had premature conditions or a history of alcoholism, according to Dr. Skip Bittenbender, who has been researching kava for 11 years at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

“Kava remains to be a very safe product,” Bittenbender said. “It helps to moderate anxiety and to make you look at things with a more positive perspective.”

“It is an ancient beverage that humans have found to change the way they feel about things,” Bittenbender said. “It works like coffee or alcohol works; it just serves a different purpose.”

The Names of Healing and Helping

Although her name is symbolic to Native Americans as “woman medicine,” Otter is not a doctor. Her knowledge of botanical medicine came to her through trauma.

“I died and came back with knowledge that I can’t explain,” Otter said, after taking a sip of hot rooibos tea.

Otter had been in a near fatal car accident in January 1996. After swerving to avoid hitting a coyote, her high-standing Isuzu Trooper flipped and continued to roll off the road.

“I was ejected from the car before it turned into a tin can,” she said.

The accident inspired Otter and her husband, Eric Dreaming Trout, to begin Otter and Trout Trading Company.

“After I got out of the hospital, my healing really began,” Otter said.

The couple began selling herbal remedies that have helped people with severe medical conditions and have also helped bring the minds of anxious college students to rest. Helping people improve medically, emotionally and spiritually is the foundation of their business.

Bessie Andrews, 28, is a journalism student at UF. If she stays in the sun for more than 15 minutes, her skin turns red. She suffers from a rare skin condition called Dysplastic nevus syndrome. People with this condition are at a very high risk of developing cancer.

When she was 18, doctors found that Andrews had cancerous tissues.

“I had 38 skin biopsies since I was 18,” Andrews explained. “Otter told me more about healing my condition than any of the doctors I went to.”

Andrews was influenced by her roommate to take botanical medicine.

“If I didn’t go to her, I would not be able to do the things I love,” Andrews said.

Other doctors told Andrews that surfing, her favorite pastime, was out of the question. Otter brought her the tools she needed to be healthy enough to surf.

The store has helped many people cope with illness and pain.

The oddly named couple has had a substantial following of happy customers, and in a flailing economy, they have plans to expand their storefront 1,200 square feet.

“At first, I thought, ‘What kind of name is that?’” Trout said, laughing and standing in the doorway of the warmly lit healing room.

Native Americans are given their names at different rites of passage, according to Otter.

“I was at a powwow when I was given my name,” Trout said, “I was always running to help people with things; I was known for getting up and running to help. A trout is symbolic in Indian tribes for constantly moving and not always staying in one place; it is a symbol for helping others.”

“That’s what it’s all about,” Otter said with a smile, referring to helping those in need.

“My friend Linda Holt came to me and said, ‘It’s time to bring the art of earth-wisdom back to the people,’” Otter said.

Human beings have been using botanical medicine for thousands of years. Lately people seem to have forgotten about the powers of the earth.

“We want to bring people the tools they need to heal,” she said.

Universities play a critical role in increasing access to essential medicines. As major contributors to drug research and development, universities have the power to influence the way these technologies are disseminated around the world. Universities own patenting rights for various life-saving drugs. Once these university-produced drugs are licensed to a major pharmaceutical company, they have a 20-year right to exclusively produce that drug, giving them a monopoly that increases prices. UAEM wants universities to adopt language in their licensing practices that would reserve the right for generic and nonprofit organizations to produce the drug regardless of the licensee. As a result, generic competition would drop to an affordable price in developing countries, making the drug more accessible to the people who need it.

During our existence at UF, our organization has passed a resolution in Student Government supporting humanitarian licensing; hosted major speakers, such as Stephen Lewis (former United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa); and held numerous film screenings, awareness events, rallies and drives to push for UF action on increasing access to medicines. Currently, we are campaigning for UF to sign onto a new access-focused initiative sponsored by the Association of University Technology Managers, working with UF’s Technology Transfer Officer to adopt the Global Access Licensing Framework and registering UF researchers with Scientists Without Borders. We are also recruiting new members to join us in our efforts to make humanitarian licensing a reality at UF.

If you are interested in getting involved, you can start by attending a weekly meeting on Thursday at 7 p.m. in Rolfs Hall room 209, signing up for our listserv by emailing Laura (lhelmk@ufl.edu), signing on to support access to life saving medicines at www.essentialmedicine.org/cs, making a donation to support national UAEM at

While the Act may be a landmark, it’s not in the sense that the New York Times claims. Instead, it’s a landmark statement of who our government is committed to.

The bill mandates that all U.S. citizens must purchase insurance, and provides “affordability credits” for low-to moderate-income people to help offset some of the costs. A red flag should go off to any critically thinking citizen here. To mandate an entire country financially back an industry and penalize those who refuse to, solidifies our government’s commitment to big business.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the bill, broke it down this morning on Democracy Now!:

“It is a $70 billion giveaway to private insurance companies and locks in this system that’s the problem, not the solution… This bill doesn’t affectively moderate what they can charge for premiums, or co-pays or deductibles. It just says people have to have insurance. Well, insurance doesn’t necessarily equate to care and care comes at a cost.”

The bill also slipped in another government opinion between the lines: its view on abortion.

Section 222 of the Act:

Prohibits abortion services from being made part of essential benefits package. [It] prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for   abortion (except in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the woman). Only private premium dollars can be used to provide abortion coverage. Where abortion coverage is provided, funds for this purpose must be segregated from other funds, including affordability credits.

This is a step back for anyone who believes women’s bodies should be their own to control. It also places a higher burden on low-income, often minority, women who statistically make less money and thus will need to use the government subsidized affordability credits to be able to pay for the mandated health insurance.

This bill is far from the “sweeping reform” we need. We have to make our voices heard to our legislators that health care reform that still has corporate insurance companies’ interests at heart is no kind of reform. We need health care for everyone in this country no matter their economic or health standing and for every procedure to be able to be done safely. We need universal single-payer health care, and the only way to get that is to take the insurance companies out of the plan.

Japan

Percentage of GDP spent on health care: 8.1

How does it work?
Under the social insurance model, people get health coverage either from their employers or through non-profit cooperatives, contributing a share of the costs themselves. The government helps provide coverage to those who can’t afford it. The government holds down costs by continually negotiating ever-lower prices on treatments. The Japanese get twice as many MRIs per capita as Americans, but MRIs cost more than a third less because of government mandates. The lower cost puts the squeeze on Japanese MRI makers, but each time they figure out how to produce more efficient machines, they can profit handsomely by exporting them.

What’s good?
The Japanese system takes care of everyone and allows people to get all the care they want at extremely low prices without excessive bureaucracy. At the same time, the pressures of government price controls have helped turn Japan into a dominant player in the global market for health care technology — a potentially attractive benefit for American cities like Gainesville, where medical research and innovation are a major source of well-paying jobs.

What’s bad?
Nearly half of Japanese hospitals operate at a deficit. Many observers wonder whether the government’s strict price controls have gone too far, creating shortages that will only get worse as the population ages. But the Japanese spend half as much on health care as America does. It’s likely they will have to either curb health care consumption or spend more money, which could mean raising prices or increasing government subsidies.

Lessons to learn
With for-profit insurance companies out of the way, a social insurance system can take care of everyone and also be good for business. Another important factor that helps keep the Japanese healthy — and health care cheap — is their diet, which includes lots of fish and vegetables and a fraction of the red meat and corn syrup that clog American arteries. If the U.S. government is more invested in the health of its people, it will have an incentive to make healthy foods more affordable, rather than subsidizing the empty calories churned out by factory farms and sold at depressed prices by convenience stores and fast-food chains.

United Kingdom

Percentage of GDP spent on health care: 8.4

How does it work?
When people try to demonize government-run health care, there’s a good chance they refer to Britain’s National Health Service, a government-run, taxpayer-funded system that resembles the medical services American soldiers receive through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Patients have a choice of hospitals, which compete for patients by providing better service with lower wait times. Government funding is tied to the amount of patients treated by doctors and hospitals.

What’s good?
The system takes care of everyone, and patients don’t have to pay doctors’ bills because their taxes take care of the tab. As a result, doctors have an incentive to keep people healthy and prevent costly health problems from ever occurring, rather than trying to profit from expensive treatments.

What’s bad?
One word: bureaucracy. Like its American analogue at the VA, the British NHS routinely draws complaints from people frustrated with long wait times for major operations like organ transplants and hip replacements.

Lessons to learn
Britain’s answer to its bureaucratic inefficiency has been creeping privatization, which has drawn widespread protests. People like government health care because they want the guaranteed coverage it entails. Indeed, depending how the question is asked, polls show that between half and two thirds of Americans favor government-run health care for everyone in the country, even if it leads to higher taxes. But government-run systems like Britain’s continue to struggle with big-ticket and optional treatments.

Switzerland

Percentage of GDP spent on health care: 10.8

How does it work?
In 1994, the same year the last American attempt at health care reform fell apart in the Hillarycare debacle, the Swiss approved universal coverage by referendum. People are required to buy health insurance, and people who can’t afford it get government assistance. Insurance companies aren’t allowed to profit from basic care, but they can make money offering compensation for lost wages, nicer hospital beds and the rest of the perks you hear about on Aflac commercials.

What’s good?
The Swiss system proves that it’s possible to cover everyone with a system largely driven by market competition in a country with large pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The reform originally passed by a narrow margin but now is widely popular across the political spectrum in one of Europe’s most individualistic countries.

What’s bad?
The Swiss system is the second most expensive in the world in terms of GDP, surpassed only by the U.S. More than 90 percent of the Swiss were already covered when the reform passed in the ’90s, and many insurers were already nonprofit. These are some of the reasons the liberal Swiss government succeeded where the Clintons failed. Our entrenched interests are stronger and the transition will be more dramatic.

Lessons to learn
To cover everybody in America, politicians are going to have to shaft the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that fund their campaigns in a way the Swiss were never forced. The Obama administration’s back-room deal to prevent Medicare from driving a harder bargain with drug companies, combined with insurance companies’ recent threats to raise premiums if reform passes, illustrate the pitfalls of taking on powerful industries and raise questions about whether simple market-based reform like that passed by Switzerland could ever succeed in the U.S.

China

Percentage of GDP spent on healthcare: 5.6

How does it work?
China had a health care system run by the government after the Communist Party took power. In urban areas, the Chinese received health care at government-funded hospitals, and in rural areas, they received it from roving “barefoot doctors” and at village clinics run by the commune-based Cooperative Medical System. In the early 1980s, however, the system began to disintegrate. Once the government transferred responsibility to provincial governments, a domino effect of increased privatization has left the Chinese with an expensive health care system that few can afford. They are taking steps to help the uninsured, however, and by 2020 hope to once again have universal health care.

What’s good?
For the vast majority of Chinese, not so much. Many wealthy urbanites have access to modern medical facilities. However, China’s healcare spending encompasses less than 5% of its Gross Domestic Product.

What’s bad?
Today, only 29 percent of Chinese have health insurance. Information on the state of Chinese health care is sparse because of a lack of government transparency, but the system resembles those of other developing nations more than that of a growing economic powerhouse. The Chinese health care system now ranks 144 out of 191 countries ranked by the World Health Organization.

Lessons to learn
After the Communist takeover, China’s system provided its people with government-funded health care and dramatically improved the quality of medical care available in the country. Granted, Chinese life expectancy was in the mid-thirties at the time of the Maoist revolution, so there was plenty of room for easy improvements. Since the reforms of the 1980s, they’ve gone in the opposite direction of industrialized nations, as their fledgling health system disintegrated into a shoddy, decentralized, increasingly privatized system plagued by inequality. Sometimes, government-run health care just works better.

Canada

Percentage of GDP spent on health care: 10.1

How does it work?
Canada has a single-payer system, in which the government is the insurance provider for everyone, but people get health care from mostly private doctors and hospitals. Currently, healthcare costs encompass near 10% of the Gross Domestic Product.

What’s good?
Everyone is covered for almost all treatments deemed medically necessary. The combined market heft of 33 million Canadians allows the government to negotiate lower prices with drug companies, and because the government doesn’t have to worry about denying people coverage, selling people plans or making profits for shareholders, Canada’s insurance system has significantly lower overhead than the U.S. system, meaning more money is spent on actually keeping people healthy.

What’s bad?
Because everyone is covered for most services, there are long wait times to see a physician. The system is under attack for inefficiency and insufficient funding. Many Canadians think that they should be able to pay for better or faster health care if they have the money, but this is mostly not allowed because it could undermine the government monopoly that helps keep drugs cheap for Canadians. There is also a fear that the best physicians will leave for more lucrative jobs in other countries.

Lessons to learn
In a perfect world, people would not go without health care. That can’t be achieved by a free market system alone. Canada has the opposite problem: the lack of market mechanisms has left patients frustrated by a lack of choices and limited the incentives to become a doctor or develop new medicines. It’s hard to give patients the choices they want under a strict government monopoly. Still, the complaints of rich Canadians unable to get softer hospital bedding at any price ring rather hollow compared to those of poor American families who can’t afford to treat life-threatening diseases.

Helping Hands Clinic: Health Care for the Homeless from Joel Mora on Vimeo.

But whether you believe we should keep our corporate system, have a public option, switch to a single-payer system or some other approach, we can all agree that health care is a very important issue. In the end, the right to health is a human right, and it should be available to everyone, like education and protection by police and fire departments.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media have done a less than stellar job of informing the public on the issue of health care. There has been little to no legitimate coverage on the specifics of the proposed policies from any side, be it Obama’s public option or any other options posed in Congress. There has been no mainstream coverage of single-payer health care or similar universal options.
More than 7 out of 10 people say the media have done either a poor or only fair job explaining the details of the various proposals, according to the latest News Interest Index performed by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

News organizations have been covering the health care debate like a presidential election. It’s the tit-for-tat bickering and sensationalism that have been consuming most of the discussion. The media have presented two sides to the story: Obama’s proposal and the Republican counter.

We hope to give a different perspective in our health care spread from what you’ve seen anywhere else. We aren’t trying to give you the “real” healthcare plans proposed. We start with a critical look at what this health care debate really comes down to: What do we value most? Human life and health, or profit and corporate control? We’ve also included a look at what some other countries around the world are doing and how their universal health care systems are working for them, as well as an expose on Solantic, North Florida’s most prosperous health care provider and opponent to reform, and a personal account of a UF student’s experience with a chronic illness and dealing with insurance companies.

Solantic, a private urgent care center that already has one location in Gainesville and is opening another, is partnering with Shands at UF to provide lower costs and lower wait times for its patients, or customers, essentially following the model of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. In fact, the CEO of Solantic told The Gainesville Sun that the company’s goal was to make visiting the clinic as convenient as ordering a latte from Starbucks.

Solantic was started by Rick Scott, who leads the conservative anti-health care reform movement and claims to be making medical dealings easier for Americans with or without insurance.

If the government took control of our current, privatized health care system, Scott has said, patients would face long, bureaucratic lines and couldn’t choose their own doctors (even though this is a luxury that very few insured people in this country enjoy even now).

Recently, Scott threw millions of his own dollars into creating the main organization behind defeating positive reform and keeping the government out of health care: Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, the group that orchestrated town hall outrages sensationalized by the media last summer, as well as the group funding the insurance company lobbyists to undermine reform in Congress.

Before Solantic, Scott was the CEO of Columbia/HCA Hospitals but was forced out in 1997 after a federal Medicare probe found that his corporation was overbilling patients and bilking the system. It ended in a historically high $1.7 billion settlement, although no criminal charges were pressed.

Scott, a vocal opponent of government-run health care, tried to profit by cheating a government-run system.

People like Scott, who are making millions off the underinsured and uninsured, are fighting reform to keep things that way. Most of the arguments against universal coverage (like those by Conservatives for Patients’ Rights) come straight from the industry that capitalizes on the failures of our dysfunctional system.

If everyone had access to health care coverage, emergency rooms would no longer be filled with people suffering from minor symptoms, like a scratchy throat, who can’t afford to see an ordinary physician.

Urgent care centers like Solantic, which makes most of its money providing quick fixes to people without insurance instead of providing long-term care, would be obsolete because people could just visit their primary care doctors with an interest in their overall health.

Though Scott and Solantic officials refuse to comment on the issue, it’s obvious that any form of universal coverage would upset the company’s profits.

Wendell Potter, a former public relations consultant for health insurance giant CIGNA, has since decided to fight on the other side for a major overhaul of the American health care system. He realized that the health care industry as it stands is controlled by corporate greed, where insurers have no incentive to offer affordable care to patients (or customers, as Solantic’s patrons might be better described).

Under these conditions, Potter told Bill Moyers, “You don’t think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you’re going to meet Wall Street’s expectations.”

Rick Scott and Solantic are merely a microcosm of our sick system, where the insurance industry profits off healthy people while people like Scott milk what they can from the poor and uninsured, who cannot afford coverage or suffer from pre-existing conditions.

These health care profit-mongers, who look at health and human life in terms of profit and loss, are the very same people who are paying and fighting to defeat any type of universal coverage.

Until we start to see health care as a right rather than a privilege, we will never move beyond that tit-for-tat bickering that has bogged down the health care debate up until now. We have an important choice to make as a society: what right do we value most — health and well-being, or private profit?

These deaths were preventable and simply a byproduct of our health care system. That’s why our country is debating health care reform, but the debate has turned into a duel with each side vying for its own economic interests instead of focusing on the needs and rights of citizens. This is the same fundamental problem with the health care system: a profit-driven goal.

Because medical care in the U.S. is based in a private industry that operates on a fee-for-service basis, insurance companies saw a niche to make profits by distributing the burden of costs, and businesses have built up the industry by using it to provide benefits to employees.

But insurance companies, like most other Western institutions, operate on a model of exploitation. They make their money by controlling the life and wellness of individuals based on whom they deem fit to cover or who will cost the company the least amount of money. That’s why the more expensive cases, such as people with pre-existing conditions or those diagnosed with deadly diseases while insured, are often left untreated.

Protecting the bottom line is why health care tycoons, like Rick Scott, are setting up obstacles along the path to health care reform in the U.S. But the idea that human life and wellness can be treated as faceless figures on a spreadsheet of yearly profits and losses is why citizens are demanding reform.

We have a collective responsibility to one another to help protect our individual rights through group cooperation. As a country, we’ve yet to figure out how to go about that, but because we’re the last industrialized nation to make health and wellness — as opposed to profit — the central objective of our health care system, we have the luxury of learning from the ways other countries ensure their citizens’ right to health care.