Saving Marguerite Ryan: Ma's an American ...

By CHARLES C. RYAN

When the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed it.

Marguerite Alice (Corry) Ryan can claim him as a relative.

One of her great-grandfathers died at Andersonville Prison during the Civil War.

Her brother Bob served in World War II. Edmund served in the Korean War. Jim served in the National Guard between wars. Her sister Genevieve was a POW, held by the Japanese for several years. The family attributes her early death to the physical and emotional trauma inflicted by the Japanese.

Marguerite's husband, Charles E. "Lucky" Ryan, served in World War II as well, aboard a U.S. Navy minesweeper. His brother was killed at Guadalcanal.

Lucky was, as the expression goes, a pillar of his community. And Marguerite was at his side.

Marguerite is proud of her country. She is proud of her heritage as an Irish American.

She would kill me if she knew I was writing this.

She'd kill me because she is a very private, very independent person.

Only she can't be anymore. An accident happened to her. A health problem she never sought.

And since the onset of that health problem she has been probed, poked, and invaded repeatedly in a surgical manner.

She has been humiliated, denigrated, treated like a half-wit or feeble child -- because she can't talk. The trach in her throat won't let her. And the damage to her short-term memory makes those who don't know her think she is suffering a form of dementia.

Yet, after nearly five years of this she still smiles when one of her children visits, and smiles even more when a grandchild shows up. She still wants to go home.

That's all.

Home.

And that is where everyone gets confused.

This is America. A democracy. All men (and women) are created equal.

All are equal in the eyes of the law.

Except we aren't. The President of the United States has full health insurance coverage for his entire life.

All members of Congress have full health insurance coverage for life.

Not one of them will ever have to go through what my mother has gone through.

Almost all of those elected officials have mouthed words about universal health care coverage, or catastrophic health care coverage.

The truth is that they do not care.

They do not care because they and their families are already covered.

No American should vote him- or herself health coverage that they are not willing to provide to everyone. To do that is unAmerican.

But our elected officials do not care because the health care, hospital, AMA, insurance and nursing home lobbies give them money each year to get re-elected. That's all that matters to them.

The only change will come when we the people (why do those words sound so familiar?), stand up and change things.

In 1774 in Boston, a bunch of men disguised as Native Americans took over a British ship and dumped tea into the harbor.

It was all about money and taxation without representation.

When, as Americans, are we going to realize that it is time to do it again?

Again we have taxation without representation, only this time it isn't tea that is the issue.

It's our very lives, and the quality of our lives when illness strikes.

Ma's an American. So am I. And it is long past time to stand up as Americans and take on the bureaucracies filled with nameless and faceless men and women who don't care about you, or me, or Marguerite Alice (Corry) Ryan.

The Declaration of Independence states, in part: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Amendment 16, Section 1 of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States relates: "... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property."

The current health care ... excuse me. The current Medical Cost Management System in place in the United States tramples upon these rights.

Medicare, through its failure to provide the service its regulations say Marguerite is entitled to, endangered her life, and deprived her of property by forcing her to pay for those services it was supposed to provide by law. Medicare and Medicaid, by only providing a nursing home environment for someone with her degree of illness have curtailed her liberty and have attempted to deprive her of her property, specifically her home, and her Social Security income, small as that is.

It is time for a new Bill of Rights. A Bill of Health Care Rights. It is time to make elected officials and the government work for the people, rather than against them.

When a government treats its citizens worse than it treats convicted criminals just because they have become ill, then there is something very seriously wrong. When it is "cruel and unusual punishment" to deprive a prisoner serving a life sentence of medical care, what is it called when the same thing is done to a citizen who has committed no crime?

If you agree that things have to change, then cut out the Bill of Health Rights located beside this article, sign your name and mail a copy to every elected official you know. (The addresses of the local officials are listed also.)

And if they don't get the message, then it is time for some of us -- American farmers, steel workers, journalists, bakers, professionals and trade persons -- to do what we did before. To take the reigns of government back into our own hands so we can do things right.

Tomorrow: Is up to you ...