Last month it was Wal-Mart, this month it's FedEx. A female truck driver who worked with FedEx was diagnosed with stage for ovarian cancer. She went back to the warehouse, told her boss, he said she still needed to work her routes. She asked for a replacement, and he said she would have to pay for that herself. So she did the routes, with the cancer. And when she finally got home, she was notified that FedEx had fired her. So now she is out of work, with cancer, and no medical insurance, and big bills to pay on her big rig. Nice.
And that's FedEx. I don't see them hurting for money. But then Wal-Mart wasn't hurting for money either, and they still screw people over. What have we come to when this kind of stuff is okay?
I was driving back to work this morning, and a guy cut a lady off of three lanes of traffic, then flipped her the bird as he looked away. I only noticed because I had to swerve to get out of the way of her trying to get out the way of him.
Why are we so damn ready to screw each other over in this country? Aren't we rich enough? Do we really had to screw each other over for just a little bit more? What happened to random acts of kindness? What happened to Christian compassion?
I get the feeling the reason we don't want universal health care in this country is not so much that we think it's a bad idea. But we don't like the idea that we can't beat someone down until they're completely destitute and without anything at all.
What this lady from FedEx do that was so wrong? Get cancer? That's her fault? She got ovarian cancer, the silent killer, and that's her fault? And whose problem is it? Should be up to FedEx? Frankly, I never understood why health insurance is the employers problem. To me, caring for others, is a burden we should all share together. I think we, as a society, should be there for this woman. That's the kind of society I want to live in. That's the kind of society I would want to be there for me, and my wife and my kids.
Whatever the outcome, we need to bring humanity back into the equation. We all need to agree at some point that is the end outcome of a series of events is that some poor little guy gets completely screwed, then that's bad. We are better than that.
I would rather make enough to get by in a society where people care about each other than make a mint in some "dog eat dog" Libertarian nightmare.
Posted by jherr at April 21, 2008 11:04 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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