Social Criminality

The United States can still be considered the most wealthy country in the world. Yet its citizens are spectacularly ill served in the most fundamental of ways. Every country in the world, regardless of how socially advanced, how technologically adept, how proud of its presence and power, its wealth and resources and the resourcefulness of its population, is plagued by a division between the haves and the have-nots.

There are endemic poor living everywhere. But most democratic, wealthy countries have social welfare valves that enable their social-economic underclass to have the dignity of care when it's needed. Universal health care is one such necessity, accessibility to some forms of social welfare, another. Lack of accessible health care, even of the most basic kind, is a formidable sin that any society should seek to amend.

Possibly it's because the United States has left the issue unresolved for so long, it has become so difficult to institute a universal program at this point. Its dedication to the principle of economic capitalism and its aversion to anything smacking of socialism and universal accessibility also complicate matters. Apart from which, it is an expensive undertaking to ensure the universality of access to health care.

Universal health care comes with the uncomfortable proviso that profit will be either eliminated or substantially reduced. This does not sit well with ambitious health professionals, nor with bottom-line-obsessed pharmaceutical manufacturers. But that's a story that's well enough known, and which a succession of American presidents have resolved to tackle and to succeed in resolving.

In the interim, a 59-year-old former truck driver suffering from arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and ruptured spinal discs, in pain and determined somehow to obtain medical assistance, temporarily lost his law-abiding status for planned criminal charges. He had no medical insurance, had depleted his savings, and was unable to find anyone to treat his medical conditions.

At a bank in North Carolina he approached a teller, handed over a note that informed her: "This is a bank robbery. Please only give me one dollar." She obliged. He informed her that when police arrived, they would find him waiting: "I'll be sitting right over there on the chair waiting for the police."

"I'm sort of a logical person, and that was my logic, what I came up with. If it is called manipulation, then out of necessity because I need medical care, then I guess I am manipulating the courts to get medical care." He was hoping for three years' imprisonment. He was charged with "larceny from a person"; the $1 was not enough to qualify as bank robbery.

He has spent a week in jail. And there he has received medical care. Pathetic in the extreme. He's right, though, three years is likely more representative of the time he needs to obtain medical attention to do justice to his health needs.