Sometimes anger is the only right response

Yesterday's front page story in my local paper was about Nataline Sarkesian, a 17-year-old girl who died last week after a long bout with cancer and her insurance company's refusal to cover a liver transplant. I read on line that the hospital had found a donor in mid-December but needed $75,000 in cash from the family to proceed. The insurance company reversed itself only after bloggers prompted hundreds of outraged calls and the family staged a rally late last week outside the company headquarters. Hours after the insurance company's decision she was dead.

Here is one of those times where I struggle with the Buddhist admonition to feel compassion even for those you don't like. Here is one of those times I feel that anger is the only appropriate response. I get limited satisfaction from saying to the Democratic presidential candidates, when they call asking for money: Talk to me when you support single-payer universal health care. I get limited satisfaction from talking to people individually as much as I can about the structural defects of our health care system.

Are these slow and small actions enough?

The bottom line is that our health care is driven by the profit motive. Individual and even collective care will always suffer in comparison, and it will be justified by corporate statements such as "people just don't want to pay for experimental care," as if they were to be faulted for that -- as if the could of course afford it if they wanted to and instead were off at the blackjack tables.

When I mentally plot the lines of each of these factors - the profit motive and entrenched corporate power on one axis, the growing outrage and ill health of the voting public on the other- it seems the intersection that will prompt change is just impossibly far away.

I'm not advocating pipe bombs or personal violence against anyone. But I'm afraid simply showing compassion and waiting for people to come around to your example simply doesn't work in the face of systemic greed and power. Of course mindfulness is always needed, to determine compassionate and effective action. But action is also needed.