Rosh Hashana Day 5770-Health Care

Rosh Hashana Day Sermon
Laramie Wyoming

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Wo-orld, Happy Birthday to you.
As we have read repeatedly in this morning's special Rosh Hashana Liturgy, Hayom Haraat Haolam. Today is the birthday of the world. This is the time of our High Holy Day season where everything is new and reborn. In these 10 days from Rosh Hashana to Yom we live a mini life moving from birth today to death at Neilah, the conclusion of Yom Kippur.

I don't know about you, but I like birthdays. But not all birthdays are the same. Just last week my nephew, Sam, turned six. This is a big year! He is starting kindergarten and has a lot of responsibilitied being the older brother to Lexi, almost three and Jack, just 7 months. Sam's birthday is a big deal. It is a day that is all about Sam. But this year it was a big deal and all about Jack instead. You see, my sister in law, Rebecca, tripped and fell. People trip and fall all the time but this fall was different. She had been walking about with baby Jack in the snuggly, you know that backpack turned frontwards for people to carry infants conveniently hands free while still providing the snuggly, close to the heart-beat feel. Down she went, and Jack did too.

Now I do not want to hold you in too much suspense. Jack and Rebecca are both, thank God, fine. The ambulance came and they both were cleared at the hospital. It was a scary few hours, though. My father was sharing some of the details with me a few days later-about how the doctor at some point said, well, we think everything is fine but we can do a CT scan on Jack just to make sure. And of course, my brother, Josh and Rebecca said yes.

I asked my dad if the doctor felt the CT scan was necessary or just precautionary. And he said, what difference does it make? Why would any parent say no? And I said, Dad, it is a luxury even to ask that question. For some people they may not be able to say yes. My father grew upset at this. Let me be clear Rachael, I love my kids and no amount of money be worth their health. Dad, I replied, what if doing the CT scan is a choice between being sure everything is fine and having the money to afford a roof over the heads of everyone in your household? What if doing the CT scan means sacrificing your home and not doing it might mean sacrificing your child?

I cannot help but pause here for a moment and consider Isaac and Abraham. Abraham also faced a decision between the lesser of two evils-between sacrificing his son and sacrificing his God. I am not trying to rescue Abraham here. I do not know, nor does the text tell us, what Abraham was thinking or feeling. Like in the conversation with my father, choosing between the CT scan for one child and money for rent for the whole family, Abraham was facing an impossible choice. My dad and I considered a hypothetical situation. But it is not a made-up, inconceivable scenario. It reminds me of Angela's storyhttp://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare/stories/186876# which I found in a collection of health care tales gathered by the president.

Angela writes, I am not sure what exactly to write or how to even begin explaining my story. I like a lot of other American households fall into a range where I make too much for Medicaid or Chips. I am a single mother of 3 amazing young men. We did have insurance while their father was serving in the Military but even that system is flawed as we had to travel 3 hours to another state to get a simple check up for a cold or to coordinate with the primary care provider for all referrals. My oldest son Malachai has what is diagnosed as...basically a brain aneurysm that has not bleed, or "popped" yet. I moved into a house 4 blocks from an emergency room in case that ever happens. His health care is a necessity for prevention of his death. To go to a local pediatric neurologist without insurance has typically costs about 9,000 every 3 months for "observation".It requires a cat scan, pediatric neurologist, Pediatric cardiologist,physical fees then to top it all off..the wonderful credit card charges associated with charging this care. This is why he can no longer go. $36,000.00 dollars a year for him to have adequate local care. Now their father has been let go from the Navy due to down sizing & weight restrictions. No more insurance at all. I am a single mother with 3 boys, I make 40,000 a year but I have 3 children to house, clothed, feed, support. I have a mortgage to pay and income taxes are scary. ...I simply can not afford the $932.00 a month plans for the coverage me and my children need. ...I believe, I believe in families being allowed to receive help with health care and the debts occurred obtaining it. ...what ever the people of this countries families are going through. In the end that is what we are, what we have, and typically how we live. As a family. Whether it is our mothers, brothers, our children, our friends, the people walking down the street. We all have one underlying factor. We all experience the same things, same feelings, at one point or another in time. We all need help. Rich, poor, middle class. I believe it is time to do something about it. I will not lie, I have little hope these days that the things I need to get accomplished will get accomplished in time. It seems it will truly be longer before the change trickles down to the families like me. Who make too much money for help, but not enough money to afford the care...All this I have written equals one thing in its entirety. It is time for a change.

I know I am a stranger to this community, but I will assume that we can agree that people should not be making choices like this one. As Jews we learn over and over again in the Torah, care for the widow, the orphan, the poor and the stranger. Even if this is not us directly, the responsibility to provide care is still ours. Like I was saying last night, I think we can do better than this.

So what do we do? Knowing that something is wrong, wanting to help is a great start. But it can feel so overwhelming, how do we help make it better? It seems to me, just like Abraham, just like Angela, in order to get, we may have to give; we may have to give up some of what we have, for the sake of the bigger picture.

Let’s pause here for a moment to sit with this idea. I do not think most people like thinking about giving anything up. I know for me, I like my time, my freedom, and my stuff to do with as I please. The idea of giving any of those things up is hard.

But who are we if we do not give, if we do not respond? We can do better than silence. We can do better than nothing.

So what do we do? I do not have THE answer but I have some ideas. I want to know yours as well. I think the first thing we can do is we can not look away. We have the technology to read stories like Angela's on line. This tool will tug at our heart strings, make us care and, perhaps, inspire us to act. And isn't that what we need to do? It is a simple act, to bear witness to the hardship of others. By reading stories, asking questions, sending letter to those who are hurting we at least can say, you are not alone.

That to me feels better than nothing.

We can share our own stories. Who hear in this room knows someone or is someone who is personally affected by the state of National Health Care? (Oause for hands to be raised). If you think you do not know someone, you know me. I have just applied for medicaid and government subsidized health care because my school's health insurance at $400 a month is simply too costly. Last year when I was on the school's health plan, I could not afford to go to the doctor because I was paying so much in premiums that the co pay was just too much! As I looked at my finances for this year, I felt worried that I could not afford it all without taking on additional work which would interfere with my ability to complete my studies. So I am now someone on medicaid. I found it very difficult to apply. I felt embarassed, ashamed that I could not do it all. But then, I felt grateful and lucky that a program was out there that could help me out until I can do it all.

What is your story?

I think we can still do better than this. People like me, people with incredibly low incomes are pretty well covered. But what about the Angelas of the world? The working poor who hold two or three jobs to make ends meet, earning just enough to get by but too much to qualify for the assistance they so need so that they too can do better.

For them, we get involved. You can call Senator Mike Enzi who "told a Wyoming town hall crowd that he had no plans to compromise with Democrats and was merely trying to extract concessions." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/26/mike-enzi-gang-of-six-rep_n_269447.html and ask him to do more than just be a road block, but to also be a beacon to change. Have a lobby day and go lobby your representatives, host a health care shabbat and invite others in the community to bear witness, share their stories and to take action together, do a health care audit on this community and find out what is happening here in Laramie, find other organizations within this community already doing this work and join them.


Right now our nation has made a huge sacrifice. We have given up quality health care, we have sacrificed National Health. We can do better than this. Maybe it is time to give up something else, our time, our stories, our commitment.

All good sermons, Jewish tradition holds, end with a nechemta, a happy ending. And the happy ending here is up to you. We are all part of this broken system. We believe it is not working. We know we can do better than this.

What will the nechemta to Health Care be? It is up to each one of us to decide.
Shana Tova