Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Million-Dollar Murray was a story that I still think of all the time. I was reading an account [...] of this guy named Murray who was a homeless guy who lives on the streets of Reno. And there were a couple of cops who knew him really well and were friends with him, and they get into some fight in Reno about homeless policy, and the cops are upset at the -- some people are saying, in the community, 'Why are you guys worried so much about the homeless people, just let them be, they're not any trouble ...' And these guys are like, 'No trouble? We spend 60% of our time dealing with the homeless!' So they marched down to the local hospital and they said can you tell us what Murray's hospital bill is? This guy who'd been living on the streets of Reno for years. Turns out, over course of the previous twelve months, Murray had run up a bill in the various social services institutions of Reno, the hospitals and such, of a million dollars -- he's million dollar murray! This man who lives on the streets [...] costs the city [...] Because he's going to the emergency room thirty, forty times a year, because he's getting picked up by the cops three or four times a week, because he's getting double pneumonia every winter and is in the hospital two weeks at a time. And that insight has been verified many times over now; that we realize that the hard-core homeless, the people on who have been on the streets for years, who we ignore and step over, cost us infinitely more than the most cossetted hypochondriac on the upper east side.

[...]

"People have to come to understand that it costs more to ignore homelessness than it does to solve it. In other words, if Murray costs a million dollars lying on the street, we could get him a suite at the Plaza and a personal assistant for less. [...] All around this country, that's what cities are starting to do -- they're not getting a suite at the plaza, but they're getting homeless people into housing and getting them into drug programs [crosstalk] Giving them some struture -- because it saves money."

-- Malcolm Gladwell (b. 1963-09-03), on the PBS television program Charlie Rose, 2009-11-11

[Figures they'd finally post the transcript on the web just after I finally finished transcribing this bit myself.]

At the Health Care Summit, Sen. John McCain said,

So when my constituents and Americans now who overwhelming reject this proposal say go back to the beginning, they want us to go back to the beginning. They want us not to do this kind of legislating. They want us to sit down together and do what's best for all Americans, not just for some people that live in Florida or happen to live in other favored states. They want a uniform treatment of all Americans.

Mr. McCain, giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that "going back to the beginning" isn't just a delaying tactic to prevent any progress whatsoever, and taking you at your word, what you said is something I really find rather encouraging.

Sure, let's rewind this process and take another shot in light of what we've learned, and let's aim for a system that does what's best for all Americans and treats us all equally:

Following your reasoning here, Let's put single-payer health care on the table. Thank you for making a case for doing so.