From a distance

Even as you all feel, I'm sure, that the health care debate cannot be escaped, I have been striving to keep up on my end, where I have to go out of my way to hear it discussed. Knowing the battle that rages at home, reading and hearing the preposterous and delusive attacks that detract from a meaningful conversation on how to make the reform the best it could be, I feel guilt for not being there to participate in what for a decade has been an issue close to my heart. That I have walked away from the mess in my own house, to come and work on the same issues somewhere else (broadly speaking, access to health care), I am not sure how to feel about.

A mere few months before leaving for Thailand, I sat at a table with Congressman Conyers, the chief sponsor of H.R. 676 (the leading health care reform bill prior to this recent effort), discussing a path forward to health care reform, the role institutions like Hopkins could play in justifying need for reform with data, and debating branding approaches (fiscal interest? human rights? social justice? societal benefit from decreasing health disparity?). I was definitely aware at that time, of a decision, whether explicit or tacitly made, to get up from that table.

I certainly don't regret coming here, I'm glad to be doing the work that I am, and I know that my presence or absence in the health care debate doesn't affect the outcome, but I still feel a sense of, perhaps, neglected responsibility. I believe our government is only as strong as the people who participate, and hold it accountable. Here is an issue that I know about and care about deeply, but I am not fulfilling my responsibility as a citizen, as a community member, as a public health professional, or as a promoter of social justice.

So recently I've been trying to find ways to engage from a distance, i.e., my location doesn't affect my ability to write to my Congressional representatives. (Though, watching the debate unfold, I can't help but feel that to really impact politics anymore, it would be more effective to go into PR or marketing.) To find what small ways I can add my drop, to what I earnestly hope becomes a rising tide, that sweeps over the nation, heralding a new area of increased equity in access to health care.