Inequities in health care system challenge Catholic leaders, Congress

Published: 2006-02-17

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- An Illinois man takes pliers to his own teeth to "treat" an abscess. A college graduate with a full-time job in Kentucky dies from complications of an easily treatable disease because she has no health insurance. A Florida woman pays an extra $1,650 a year above her medical costs to get more personalized treatment and phone calls directly from her doctor. What's wrong with this picture? The issue of justice in health care probably has been discussed since before the Hippocratic oath was written. But as American medicine becomes more technologically complex, the gap between the haves and the have-nots is getting larger. Colleen L. Kannaday, president of St. Francis Hospital and Health Center in Blue Island, Ill., is one of the people working to narrow that gap. Appointed by the president of the Illinois Senate to the state's Adequate Health Care Task Force, she and 28 other task force members are charged with coming up with a plan that will give all residents of the state "access to a full range of preventive, acute and long-term health care services," without sacrificing quality or increasing costs.

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