Winning the Trifecta of Poverty: Black, Older, Woman
Posted: July 2, 2008 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Esmin Green, Hillary Clinton, human development index, John Edwards, Poverty, taxes, universal health care 3 CommentsJust about the time I think civilization has hit rock bottom, I find something else disturbing. An American Woman, Esmin Green, died because of antipathy, the abhorrent state of health care in this country, and her demographics. She basically won the lottery for what it takes to be an invisible person in this country. She was black, older (49), a woman, and in need of mental health care. The folks in the room did nothing. A security guard did nothing. There is evidence that the staff fudged the details of her death.
“A shocking video shows a woman dying on the floor in the psych ward at Kings County Hospital, while people around her, including a security guard, did nothing to help.
After an hour, another mental patient finally got the attention of the indifferent hospital workers, according to the tape, obtained by the Daily News.
Worse still, the surveillance tape suggests hospital staff may have falsified medical charts to cover the utter lack of treatment provided Esmin Green before she died.”
There is no reason for these things to happen in an industrialized modern country. We are able to treat all people humanely and there are plenty of resources and wealth to make this possible. What we lack is the will. We would rather buy toys and have comfy huge cars and homes than take care of the least among us with our tax dollars or even our charity.
This is from Wikipedia:
Poverty in the United States refers to people living in poverty in the U.S. Within the U.S. the most common measure of poverty is the “poverty line” set by the U.S. government. The official poverty threshold is adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index. Poverty in the United States is cyclical in nature with roughly 12% to 15% living below the federal poverty line at any given point in time, and roughly 40% falling below the poverty line at some time within a 10 year time span. While there remains some controversy of whether or not the official poverty over or understates poverty, the United States has some of the highest absolute and relative pre and post-transfer, poverty rates in the developed world. Overall, the U.S. ranks 16th on the Human Poverty Index.
Those under the age of 18 were the most likely to be impoverished. In 2006 the poverty rate for minors in the United States was the highest in the industrialized world, with 21.9% of all minors and 30% of African American minors living below the poverty threshold. Moreover, the standard of living for those in the bottom 10% was lower in the U.S. than in any other developed nation except the United Kingdom, which had the lowest standard of living for impoverished children.
That’s right, the U.S. is not number one in anything right now when it comes to economics. However, we’re close to achieving the number one for developed nations with high levels of income disparity and poverty. We are no longer the the economy with the highest GDP (the European Union has passed us). We have not been the economy with the highest living standard or income per capita in the world for some time. We’re 9th now in GDP per capita( http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=cu&v=67 ) per the CIA’s World Fact Book. We’re all losing ground, but there are those in our country who never reached that ground at any point in their lives. Their numbers are growing rapidly.
We’re very low ranked on all indexes that measure how we treat the least among us for wealthy, developed nations. This is especially true when it comes to comparing the U.S. to other developed nations. Here’s the Human Development Report link for 2007/2008. The United States now ranks 17th in the world on this index. (http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/5.html)
How can such a rich nation with so many resources and positive gifts to human civilization rank so low on how it treats its most vulnerable citizens? The answer must lie some where within us. It lies within the people that watched this woman fall and die. It lies within the guard that did nothing. It lies within the hearts of the folks responsible for her treatment that ignored her for so long and then lied to cover their actions. It lies within a system where the big economics discussion during a presidential campaign is how can I get away with paying the least amount of money possible to move this country and its citizens forward?
Look at the roads, the schools, the electrical grids, the Levees, the hospitals and then look very closely at the state of their decay. Every time you scream don’t raise MY taxes to a politician, another crack in our infrastructure appears. Another wounded soldier sits in Walter Reed with rat feces and mildew. Another Esmin Green falls to the floor dying without help or hope.
I hope you all enjoy your plasma tvs, your big ol Toasterlike SUVs, and your summer vacations at Disneyworld because those are obviously more important than showing the world that the U.S. takes care of its own. The future requires us to save, to invest, to pay taxes to build infrastructure and to provide funds for research and technology. Our humanity requires us to provide basic services to our fellow citizens.
Now I’m not saying I want to pay for a bridge to nowhere or a museum that glorifies mules or Woodstock. I do, however, want to pay for whatever it would take to stop another person like Esmin Green from dying, to stop toxic food and toys from killing U.S. children, animals, and adults, to ensure that our returning wounded soldiers have everything they need, and to provide for adequate basic health care for all Americans.
I know Hillary Clinton shared this vision with me. I know that John Edwards shared this vision. I know many of you do. It is time we spoke up. It is also time we offer to make sacrifices to ensure that all Americans share the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My pursuit of happiness does not necessarily require a plasma tv, but it does require that we stop folks like Esmin Green from winning the trifecta of poverty ever again. We need the type of universal healthcare plan offered by John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. Let us commit to the sacrifice and work it takes to achieve it.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
thanks for focusing on the economy. Esmin Green’s death is a tragedy. unfortunately, i don’t think it’s a shocking one.
as a resident of CA, i’m in the camp of poverty being underreported. it’s been common for one or two families to live in a garage for at least a couple of decades here. (some of the garages have running water, a toilet, and heat. others don’t. none have air conditioning.) many middle-class people couldn’t afford to buy a house without renting out their garage (or part of their house). very few of the people who live in garages are counted as poor but their living standards are low. (some have incomes above the poverty line which does not reflect local housing prices. others are invisible because people don’t want to admit their existence. some are in the US illegally but others are just living in garages illegally and the home owners don’t want anyone to know that they are violating the law by renting out their garage.)
health care is a joke, especially if you’re poor or disabled. even if you aren’t disabled it’s bad. i’m now permanently disabled because my doctors refused to run tests for a few years. they thought the tests would be too expensive. from their point of view, they were correct. to them, my disability is an externality (even though, technically, i’m a participant since i pay the insurance premiums). i still get little care so they don’t bear the expenses. my story is common; if this is the care people with good insurance get, you can imagine the care the poor get. doctors, hospitals, insurance companies (often the government in the case of the poor), and policy makers literally don’t care if people die. that’s cheaper for them than if someone ends up needing a lot of care.
i think it’s because the US has a very individualistic culture, because politicians need a lot of money (and need large contributors), and because our concentrated wealth and power leave us isolated from one another and leave most Americans unable to have any real influence on political decisions.
Very sad, but please revise the headline. This lady was not elderly. She was 49.
On the day I became homeless, I tried to get treatment at UC psych emergency. It was February, about 25 degrees outside. A nurse found my body temperature to be a little low, and kept me in the triage area until I got back up to 98,6. After that, I talked to a psych RN for about 10 minutes. I informed both nurses that I wanted to commit suicide.
They offered to pay for a taxi ride to a shelter. The shelter, and it’s reputation, were one of the reasons I was suicidal. I asked to speak with a psychiatrist, an M.D., because the psych RN hinted that such a request would give them a reason to keep me there.
I sat in the reception area, and eventually dozed off. It was 11:00 pm. I awoke several times during the night, and ultimately stayed until shift change at 8am.
As far as I know, nobody ever checked on me. I never saw the doctor. As I was gathering my things, the morning shift receptionist told me about a glass-enclosed corridor near the ER where homeless people sometimes slept.
I have been in the main ER at UC and received very professional treatment for physical injuries and illness. But psych ER’s are a mystery to me. There seems to be no protocol, no follow up. It’s almost as if they are making it up as they go along.