Fact #1: 47 million people are uninsured while another 87 million are underinsured
Fact #2: 18,000 people die every year because of a lack of proper health care.
Fact #3: 73% of physicians support a public option.
(Want more facts? Click here)

When looking at the facts, the answer to how to fix our broken health care system seems obvious. As the health care debate continues, the art of politics, or should I say, the bureaucracy within our democratic Congress, has made this answer more complicated than it should be.

Yesterday morning, Campus Progress attended a hearing, “Costs of Broken Health Care System, Benefits of Public Option,” hosted by Representative Jackson-Lee and Representative Conyers, who convened patients, physicians, and experts to push for a robust public option.

This hearing was by no means a political debate about health care; it was instead, an opportunity for individuals to give testimony to why the public option plays a fundamental role in the health and happiness of all Americans. While many of us are trying to understand the politics of the health care reform legislation, the answer becomes clear once you listen to the tragedies that many of our fellow Americans have had to endure due to poor or no coverage.

During the hearing, we watched a 3-minute clip of a film, “Reinventing Paradise,” where the producer, Natalie Noel, was also present and gave testimony. Natalie is a cancer patient whose insurance coverage was recently terminated and her 3-minute clip captures stories of Gulf Coast residents who have suffered health-care hardships post-Katrina. Representative Jackson-Lee responded to Noel’s film and testimony by stating, “although all of us want to believe we live in a democracy…we know some are left out; the sick, the frail, the mentally ill…those who can’t tell their stories.”

There were more than twenty witnesses who gave testimony, including a woman named Joan Kosloff. Joan came to the hearing on behalf of her son, Eric, who died last year to pneumonia due to his lack of health insurance. As Joan gave her testimony, pictures were passed around of Eric (who was 44) and his 3 year old daughter—it was very difficult to hold back tears. After her testimony, Dr. Carson of Johns Hopkins responded, “we must build a powerful coalition of consciousness” to remind members of Congress of what the consequences may be without a public option.

While every member of Congress is faced with 3.5 lobbyists working for insurance companies, testimonies like these should win out over lobbyist propaganda because these stories unveil the truth that this fight is no longer for a public “option,” it is for a public necessity.