My 12-year-old son's proposal for a 28th Amendment, about health care

[liberalhistorian]

My sixth-grade son likes social studies and does very well in it. He's already very political, as many of you know, and he attended the October 25 march in D.C. with me.

Today he told me about his idea for a 28th Constitutional Amendment. He said the amendment would state that, "in the event that a person's in a life-threatening medical situation, the person's medical bills would either be automatically covered or reduced by up to fifty percent. No medical provider would be permitted to file a lien against property owned by the ill person or his/her spouse or family, nor would they be permitted to sue the ill person or his/her spouse or family. In lower-income or poor families, catastophic medical bills would be either automatically covered or reduced by sixty percent, instead of fifty percent." (Those are all his words, not mine)!

He said it was inspired by the many stories he's heard of families and people being financially devastated and losing their homes or filing for bankruptcy just so they could get the treatment they or their children/spouse need. One family had two children who both had brain tumors, and they had to sell their house and most of their other property and belongings in order to cover the exorbitant bills, many of them not covered or barely covered by insurance.

One of his school's social studies teachers (not his), approached him at lunch today asking about his amendment idea, since he'd heard about it. The teacher then told him the web site for the senate, and suggested he write a letter to one of our senators proposing the idea.

I realize it may be fairly naive, and may not get too far, but I happen to think it's the seed of a great idea and I intend to encourage him all the way. I'm already a member of a single-payer advocacy group, and guaranteed, comprehensive health care is one of my main issues, as many of you already know, so I was really proud of him for coming up with this idea! Just thought I'd share it with you, since most of you are sympathetic to the goal of some form of national health care.

[Cleita]

1. Your son is a smart cookie.

I always felt that an ammendment would be needed to make access to health care a human right. Many other countries have such provisions written into their constitutions. It makes it so much harder for the politicians to meddle in an entitlement then.

[liberalhistorian]

2. Yes, that's certainly a good point,

the problem is getting the amendment passed in the first place!

[xray s]

3. That is quite a boy you have there!

You must be proud of him!

We had a parent teacher conference with my sons HS Consumer Ed teacher recently. He was going through all the topics that they would cover this year. When he got to health insurance he said most kids don't care about it because their parents take care of it so they do not have to think about it.

I pleaded with him to please try to get them interested in this issue, because in order to be intellegent voters they had to understand not only how our system works, but how the rest of the world takes care of insuring their citizens. He totally agreed with me.

We need more kids like yours! :hi:

[liberalhistorian]

4. I think more and more kids are going

to start paying a lot more attention to this issue, as less and less parents, even in the middle class, are insured and/or able to cover necessary medical costs. And more of them are seeing their friends deal with the same thing, as well, which is opening their eyes up a little.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. congratulations on having such a son

Even if the idea doesn't get far, it sounds like he will.

[liberalhistorian]

9. I sure hope so!

And I've promised him I won't pull the single-mother-who-gave-up-my-life-to-raise-you guilt trip in the future, either, lol!

[grannylib]

6. Even Bush said in a speech at his last press conference that "free

societies provide health care for all" so I guess ours is not free yet...
Hats off to your son and best wishes to him if he pursues this!

[liberalhistorian]

12. LOL!

I wonder if he even realized exactly what he said? Of course, that was just another empty, meaningless "appeasement" platitude handed to him by KKKarl.

[Selwynn]

7. OK - Clark/ Your Son 2004!!!

w00t!

[liberalhistorian]

10. LOL!

Clark is my mother's maiden name, so she gets a kick out of having someone with that name running for president.

[Gman]

8. It would be wonderful to bring it up along with the Marriage amendment

THen what they gonna do?

[liberalhistorian]

11. Actually, that's a

pretty good point, especially considering how so many marriages are affected by huge medical bills every year.

[lapislzi]

13. I've been following your stories about your son

and he sounds like a terrific kid. My 10-yr-old is also very politically aware and I can't tell you how proud it makes me. Maybe we can introduce them?
;-)

[liberalhistorian]

18. Yes, that'd be a great idea.

He corresponds with the son of another DUer here, so he'd enjoy that and it'd be good for them, since he often feels isolated among his peers.

[camero]

14. What a son.

Maybe he could get them to make it a part of a patient's bill of rights bill. He could just ask them to slip it in while noone's looking. Hey, the pubs do it like that...lol

[kentuck]

15. Very impressive...

Should be worthy of debate on the House floor. A thought: Does an added Amendment have to be approved by two-thirds of the states?

[liberalhistorian]

17. A Constitutional Amendment

must be approved by two-thirds of the states, which is why they're usually so hard to pass and why there aren't nearly as many of them as there probably would be if just a simple majority of the states needed to pass it.

[camero]

16. kick

kick this :hi:

[Ttam40]

19. wow

[beyurslf]

20. It is great to see parents "growing up" our next

generation of Democrats. My nieces (ages 4 and 6) say they are Democrats.

[Catherine Vincent]

21. That was very smart of your son to propose that.

We would only hope it gets some traction. Did you take him to see the movie "John Q"? That was a fictional story but there was a lot of realities in it.

[liberalhistorian]

22. Yes, I certainly did take him to see that last

year, and that was the beginning of his realization of the insanity of our health care system and the desperate need for reform. He sat riveted through the whole movie. A couple of times he said he was going to go get some popcorn or something to drink, then he'd stay in his seat and keep watching, he'd never done that at any other movie before!