How Long, Oh Lord, How Long? The top story in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times brought to mind one of the most-cited Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes about health (and health care) in the United States. It is usually this version–slightly but significantly altered by someone who must have thought his exact words might offend some folks–that we see and hear:
I submitted the below published comment to Pediatrics, the flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, regarding the launch of a new section in the journal: “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice.” (Our 75th Anniversary: A Time for Looking Back and Looking Ahead | Pediatrics | American Academy of Pediatrics)
Healthcare Financing: To make or break “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice.”
Bravo on the journal’s new section, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice.”
This creates an important opportunity to focus on a topic that is upstream, not just from all of these issues, but also upstream from and impacting virtually everything in pediatrics and healthcare in general: Financing.
Our current system of healthcare financing is broken. It undermines diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. It’s downstream impacts include some 4 million uninsured children, with some 80 million people of all ages uninsured or underinsured. Children are harmed, because tens of millions are parents and caregivers of children. Our broken financing system harms our patients (care that is unaffordable or inaccessible; crippling financial and emotional stress) and our physicians and other healthcare professionals and workers (demoralization and burnout).
Consuming almost 20% of our nation’s GDP, it undermines our society’s ability to provide adequate funding for other essential functions, including education, public safety, the environment and more.
The values of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice are given second place (or even worse) to the market-based priority value of financial profit. Profit is the core value driven by the dominant, growing power of insurance and pharmaceutical corporations and private equity investors.
We can do better... and must find a way to do so. I hope that Pediatrics, and the Academy, will explore achieving diversity, equity, inclusion and justice through a healthcare financing system whose primary upstream value is not profit, but rather care: Universal healthcare through a unified system of public financing.
Thanks, Wendell for bringing this up. I was unaware that MLK's quote about health had also been altered to avoid offending someone. Dammit, more people need to be offended by the horrible inequality in health care.
The white-washing (not a pun) of King's speeches has spread far and wide. Just in the past couple of days I have found several other instances. One is that no one seems to mention his anti-Vietnam War speech at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination.
Others include the fact that no one uses the word integration anymore, although that was one of the most important issues that he returned to in speech after speech. The way he meant the word scares people because for King integration meant "mutual acceptance, interpersonal living and shared power", e.g. if a black person comes to the door of a white person's house for a cup of sugar, that white person sees him as a neighbor, not as a threat. CNN had a great article on this yesterday: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/15/us/mlk-i-have-a-dream-speech-blake-cec/index.html
Sadly, we are nowhere near true integration in this intensely divided society. This song by Phil Ochs from 1966 is still relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nFvhhCulaw (4:39).
I submitted the below published comment to Pediatrics, the flagship journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, regarding the launch of a new section in the journal: “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice.” (Our 75th Anniversary: A Time for Looking Back and Looking Ahead | Pediatrics | American Academy of Pediatrics)
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/151/1/e2022060330/190370/Our-75th-Anniversary-A-Time-for-Looking-Back-and
Healthcare Financing: To make or break “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice.”
Bravo on the journal’s new section, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice.”
This creates an important opportunity to focus on a topic that is upstream, not just from all of these issues, but also upstream from and impacting virtually everything in pediatrics and healthcare in general: Financing.
Our current system of healthcare financing is broken. It undermines diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. It’s downstream impacts include some 4 million uninsured children, with some 80 million people of all ages uninsured or underinsured. Children are harmed, because tens of millions are parents and caregivers of children. Our broken financing system harms our patients (care that is unaffordable or inaccessible; crippling financial and emotional stress) and our physicians and other healthcare professionals and workers (demoralization and burnout).
Consuming almost 20% of our nation’s GDP, it undermines our society’s ability to provide adequate funding for other essential functions, including education, public safety, the environment and more.
The values of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice are given second place (or even worse) to the market-based priority value of financial profit. Profit is the core value driven by the dominant, growing power of insurance and pharmaceutical corporations and private equity investors.
We can do better... and must find a way to do so. I hope that Pediatrics, and the Academy, will explore achieving diversity, equity, inclusion and justice through a healthcare financing system whose primary upstream value is not profit, but rather care: Universal healthcare through a unified system of public financing.
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Thanks, Wendell for bringing this up. I was unaware that MLK's quote about health had also been altered to avoid offending someone. Dammit, more people need to be offended by the horrible inequality in health care.
The white-washing (not a pun) of King's speeches has spread far and wide. Just in the past couple of days I have found several other instances. One is that no one seems to mention his anti-Vietnam War speech at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination.
Others include the fact that no one uses the word integration anymore, although that was one of the most important issues that he returned to in speech after speech. The way he meant the word scares people because for King integration meant "mutual acceptance, interpersonal living and shared power", e.g. if a black person comes to the door of a white person's house for a cup of sugar, that white person sees him as a neighbor, not as a threat. CNN had a great article on this yesterday: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/15/us/mlk-i-have-a-dream-speech-blake-cec/index.html
Sadly, we are nowhere near true integration in this intensely divided society. This song by Phil Ochs from 1966 is still relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nFvhhCulaw (4:39).
And this is not a white-wash, but rather a very pointed comment on this whole issue: https://scheerpost.com/2023/01/16/kingmaker/
Stay safe.
Needed and beautifully written. TY!!
Amen, Wendell.
Thank You!