Health Care Barter

When I was a child my mother did the hospital laundry in exchange for an operation that she desperately needed. My brothers and sisters and I crawled on hands and knees under bed sheets that were hung from lines strung across our living room for several years. We had an electric washing machine with hand-operated wringers, and mother ironed the sheets and hospital uniforms by hand. With nine children in our family, a father holding down two jobs and a mother whose work was never done, these were the only facilities that we could afford.

A few years later, in 1947, my father died from a failed operation at the same hospital. He had no insurance and he left us with high hospital and doctor bills. Once again we washed the hospital laundry to pay the debt. This time the older children were married, and the rest of us were old enough to help. We still hung the sheets on lines to dry, we had an electric mangle for ironing.

This all happened years ago in a small town in Colorado. Today, it would be impossible to barter for medical care. What do we expect a poor family to do when a medical need arises? We need universal medical coverage in America.

FLORINE L. ABBOTT

San Diego