10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE MAY 20, 1994

EDITORIAL

We also benefit from health care reform

Many Americans believe that our current health care system is in a state of crisis. Opinion polls demonstrate that, in fact, a majority of Americans believe this. Some argue, however, that there is no such crisis. For some Americans this is true.

There is no crisis for those who can afford health care services. But, for all those Americans who have no insurance, or expensive health insurance with little in the way of benefits, or lose their health insurance when they need it most, the health care crisis is only too real. A health care reform plan that offers guaranteed universal coverage would eliminate these problems. But why should gays, lesbians, and bisexuals care about reform plans that guarantee universal coverage and the competing health care reform legislation currently being debated in Congress?

First, let us remember that providing quality health care to all citizens of this country is an issue than transcends all boundaries. Whether gay or straight, black or white, religious or non-religious, our national community will benefit from a reform plan that increases the level of access to medical care. It is an issue that can unite everyone because it is truly in all our best interests. There are benefits to a healthier population that spill over to the rest of our national community. Whether it's an increase in labor productivity or just one fewer case of the measles, good health is a good thing.

Unfortunately, any health care reform plan that provides health care for those who are currently not covered (or who are covered but would see an increase in benefits) constitutes a redistribution of resources away from those who benefit from the current health care system. Health care resources are scarce. As sad or unfair as it may seem, there isn't an endless supply to go around. Under our current system, health care services are rationed by ability to pay with the federal government subsidizing access for the aged and poor through the Medicare and

Medicaid programs, respectively. Those who resist reform are those who stand to lose the most by reform, namely those who currently have access to the best health care that money (or superior health insurance policies) can buy and those that provide the best health care that money can buy (i.e., health insurance companies and health care providers who profit excessively from the current system). So, those who would like access to better health care services are going to have to fight to get them.

But the issue is often further complicated by the quality of the debate presented to the public in the media. Often, health care reform gets reduced to catchy phrases designed to pigeonhole the debate. These attempts at oversimplification succeed, at times, in getting the public to correlate health care reform with something much worse than the current health care predicament.

For example, let's take a criticism of President Clinton's plan. Many have stated that the president's plan would introduce "socialized medicine" to the United States. The trick here involves associating socialism (i.e., morally bad and doesn't work) with a complicated health care reform plan painstakingly developed over months. The intended conclusion follows that if our health care system was "socialized" it would be a bad thing and wouldn't work. Any sincere and intelligent discussion on health care reform must avoid this fallacious reasoning. In the age of the sound bite, it is difficult for some to resist the temptation of using fear to sway public opinion in order to maintain the status quo. So remember, when interpreting the debate in the media, consider who stands to lose and who stands to gain.

The health care needs of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans are not different from those of other Americans. It is true that a higher percentage of gay men are now experiencing a catastrophic illness, namely AIDS. But all Americans run the risk of

experiencing some sort of catastrophic illness. In fact, if you're lucky enough to grow old, chances are you can't avoid it. The problem for gay men is that we stand to lose our health care coverage when we do experience a catastrophic illness like AIDS. At a time when coverage is needed most, health insurers, after discovering the AIDS diagnosis, can reduce the lifetime benefits of a policy in an attempt to reduce their future expenses. Insurance companies, in fact, have successfully argued this point to the New York state supreme court. So health care reform that guarantees coverage, no matter what the circumstances, will be a welcomed and needed change.

A health care reform plan that includes universal coverage also eliminates a problem particular to gay and lesbian partner relationships. Unlike heterosexual couples, homosexual couples do not have the option of getting married and, thus, being recognized by the state. Health insurance benefits afforded to the heterosexual spouse of a covered mate are therefore unavailable to the partners of insured gays and lesbians. A universal plan would make the legal restrictions to marriage for gay and lesbian couples a moot point, with respect to access to health care.

Most importantly, the financial restrictions to health care coverage currently experienced by gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the rest of the country would also be eliminated. Health care costs and the cost of health care insurance keep too many of us from getting the quality health care we need. Can we, as a national community, follow in the footsteps of the rest of the industrialized nations of the world by supporting a health care reform plan that shows as much concern for the uninsured, underinsured, and the working poor as we show for the poor and aged? Or are we still more comfortable ignoring the runaway costs of the current system and the plight of the less fortunate? We have ignored these choices for too long.

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Volume 9, Issue 23

Publisher: Martha J. Pontoni Business Manager: Patti Harris Managing Editor: Kevin Beaney Production Manager: Brian DeWitt Reporters & Writers: Kevin Beaney, Doreen

Cudnik, Barry Daniels, John Graves, Charlton Harper, Joseph Morris, Martha J. Pontoni, Mike Radice, Timothy Robson

Akron-Canton: Paul Schwitzgebel,

Jerry Kaiser

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SPEAK OUT

Title IX hears the cries of 'I want to play too!"

by Becky Foreman

The ball and the bat met with a loud crack! Everyone looked my way toward right field. It was obvious that the ball was going to carry far beyond where I stood. I turned and ran, my glove outstretched as far as I could reach. I glanced over my shoulder just as the ball glided past my head. I extended my glove even farther and felt the two connect. All the boys screamed and ran toward me. Pats on the back, cheers of "way to go!" and "good catch!" all made my head spin. My self esteem soared.

One afternoon the boys showed up in brand new shirts. They all had numbers on the back and names like Sunoco, Toole's Electric, and Bob's Barber Shop on them. My brother strutted around in his uniform all day, his face glowing with pride. His knee-length white stirrup pants fit perfectly. He looked sharp.

That night, I sat on the back step and cried as he and the other boys went to the field for their first game of the season. Our house was only a block from the park, so I could hear all the sounds; the crack of the bat, the cheers of the crowd, the "come on batta, batta, batta" of the outfield team. Why couldn't I play? I knew I was as good a player as any of them. Why couldn't I have been born a boy? It just wasn't fair.

I was so happy the following summer when a girls' softball league was organized.

Our uniforms consisted of green shorts and a white sweatshirt that said "Pettibone's" on them. We didn't have "mosquito” and “little” leagues like the boys did, so at age eleven, I was one of the youngest players on a team of girls ranging in age from ten to seventeen. My team won the league championship that summer, but while winning felt good, it was secondary to me. Just playing was most important.

That was the only summer the league existed. The grown-ups tried to explain that they had no money for it the next summer. I was relegated to the stands again, watching... longing... to play. It just didn't seem fair.

In junior high, I went to all of the boys' basketball games. After the games, I'd go home and spend hours in the driveway shooting baskets. I'd drive for a layup and imagine the cheers when the ball bounced off the backboard into the hoop. I'd run laps around the yard to get in shape. For what, I didn't know-there were no teams for me.

Our freshman year of high school brought lots of choices for the boys. Basketball, football, track, golf, cross-country were all available to them. Gymnastics and cheerleading were my choices. The year was 1972, and the girls' gym teacher spoke of Title IX. I didn't know what it was, but because of it, we had a girls' basketball team my sophomore year. We each bought blue shorts and paid for our team t-shirts. I

wore number 10 as proudly as anyone possibly could. Our practices were held at the elementary school, on gym floors that were warped and smaller than regulation size. The only time we could practice on the smooth, regulation size high school floor was at 7 am every Saturday morning.

We played six games that season, winning our first one 6 to 4. The score would have been much higher had I made more layups after stealing the ball from the other team. But, I'll never forget the cheers from our bench and from the few parents in the stands, after the ones I did make.

After that first game, I practiced with a vengeance, learned to control my nerves, and by the end of the season, our scores were more respectable. I was so proud at the end of the year when my teammates elected me "most valuable player."

I remember hearing something that year about a woman named Billie Jean King. She had defeated a man named Bobbie Riggs in a tennis match. I didn't understand, until years later, the significance of that event and how it would affect me, and all of women's sports.

In my junior year, we had volleyball in the fall, basketball and track in the spring. We were winless in volleyball, but league and county champions in basketball. The county championship game drew the largest crowd we were ever to play before, and it was my final game. A picture of me

making a lay-up was in the county newspaper the next day. I read again and again the paragraph containing my name and point total. That faded newspaper clipping is in a box of high school treasures, along with a piece of the hoop and a trophy from that game.

It was the year after my high school graduation that a thirteen-year-old girl became the "talk of the town." She was the first girl, at least in my hometown, to play on a boys' little league baseball team. I went to a game and watched her pitch. Tears welled up in my eyes as I watched her strike out batters and throw hitters out at first base. That summer evening, as I sat alone crying on my back step, it seemed in some ways like only yesterday, and in other ways, like another era.

I envy the players of today. They wear professionally manufactured uniforms and expensive basketball shoes, all funded by their school's athletic departments. Purchasing a varsity jacket is not an honor reserved just for the boys, as it was in my playing days. Their seasons consist of 20 plus games and the good players compete for college scholarships. I don't begrudge them their opportunities, but I am sad that I was born just a little too soon to benefit fully from the passage of Title IX. But, I am thankful that Congress finally agreed with a little girl, crying on her back step, that it just wasn't fair.