Tod Goldberg

Because Trump doesn’t believe health care is a basic human right

Since my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, I’ve become a connoisseur of waiting rooms. The waiting room at the surgeon’s office? The TV is always tuned to a cooking show, Bobby Flay in perpetual competition for something with no stakes, no consequences, no future, no past—he’s just there, trying to perfect an empanada in perpetuity. 

The waiting room at the chemotherapy center? There’s a lending library of books. It’s all romance and thrillers. A murder of Lee Child novels—Reacher always showing up in town to right the chaos—line the shelves. A bald man picks up a novel, reads it for a few minutes, then is called in for treatment, Reacher stuck on page six, forever. 

The radiation center has free coffee that no one drinks and the most consistent Wi-Fi. There’s a loveseat I like to sit on, so I can really spread out with my anxiety. 

Seven months I’ve sat in these rooms, calculating the cost of living.

My wife and I, we’re always the youngest people in these rooms, though we’re both in our fifties. It’s because our insurance is so good, we can afford the best treatment. The University of California takes care of their professors. 

I am thankful. 

And lucky.

So my wife gets to live.

But what about those people who can’t afford the best treatment? Who don’t have insurance? This is what keeps me awake, watching my wife sleep through her hard nights post treatment.

There was a shot my wife got the day after each chemo appointment. That waiting room always had 1980s music playing. Echo and the Bunnymen. Modern English. Depeche Mode. Do you want to know what these shots cost? my wife asked. Or at least what it would cost if we didn’t have insurance? It’s $25,000, she said. 

What does it do? I asked. 

It turns on my bone marrow, she told me. 

That seems important. If you want to live.

And yet there’s a person running for president who doesn’t believe health care is a basic human right. Who would replace the Affordable Care Act with the “Concept of a Plan.” A person who would make medical care for seniors on Medicare palpably worse. A person who would prefer a mother die while miscarrying a baby than provide a safe alternative. A person whose entire existence has been predicated on base cruelty as a brand. 

The inequities of the American health care system are vast. Systemic change for the better must happen. Kamala Harris understands this. Any decent human should. 

And that’s the rub on that deal, isn’t it? 

Basic human decency. Altruism. Empathy. These are concepts foreign to Donald Trump. He views them as weakness. Kamala Harris views them as the hallmarks of being an American.

My wife’s last day of treatment is this week. 

She’ll get to ring a bell to mark the occasion. 

May it serve as a clarion call.

Tod Goldberg is the best-selling author of Gangsters Don’t Die.