Forget the chenille scarf. Your uncle doesn’t need one. At least two other relatives will be giving him scarves.
Forget the bathrobe for your mother; she has a collection from past holidays.
Your grandmother doesn’t need more cologne; it’s not clear she ever needed cologne, and if she does, she’s got a shelf stocked with cute bottles, which she sometimes “re-gifts” to you.
As for your children, their rooms look like toy outlets. Before you plunge for a new toy, see whether they can inventory the ones they have.
Toss the stack of catalogues into the recycling bin – even the ones that offer instant dawn delivery via sonic waves to a delighted recipient. Take an afternoon off from mall prowling.
Make this holiday work – use it to enhance the health of the people around you.
Start with the women in your life – your mother, grandmother, wife – whichever adult female is important to you. Has she had a mammogram within the past two years?
Lots of women shun these exams, even though insurers generally pay for them. Schedule a mammogram for her, promise to go with her, pay the co-payment. If she has no insurance, hook up with the state program (courtesy of federal largesse, every state offers free mammograms for adult uninsured women who meet income guidelines) that will pay for hers. If she is uninsured and her income is too high for the state program, pay for the mammogram. There are cashmere sweaters that cost more.
For the men over age 50 in your life, steer them toward colonoscopies. Colon cancer kills too many Americans. A simple outpatient procedure that detects polyps early can save lives. Yet too few Americans seek out this test, even when an insurer will pay.
So go with your uncle, father, brother, grandfather for a colonoscopy. Without insurance, the test costs about $1200 – admittedly, more than a cashmere sweater or two – but less than a flat-screen mega television set.
Now your children. They may expect to sit on Santa’s lap. Instead, lug them to the pediatrician for the immunizations you’ve put off.
Some HMOs make it hard for parents to fall back on immunization timetables: the reminder letters are almost dunning notices. Yet parents can avoid even those – ending up with toddlers who are not immunized for the basic diseases we can prevent, like measles, diphtheria and rubella. In the United States, these diseases may seem extinct, but they live globally, and in a global world, microbes and viruses travel.
Add your state legislators and your governor to this new holiday list.
I know – you are balking. You don’t know who your state legislators are, and you are so angry at rising deficits that you want to recall your governor, not reward him.
Yet states run the programs that insure children and pregnant women, either Medicaid or the expansion States Children Health Insurance Program, SCHIP.
Although the federal government pays part of the costs, states set the guidelines.
Not surprisingly, the recent deficits have forced states to “rethink” their priorities; and, to the backdrop of citizens clamoring “no more taxes,” governors and legislatures have ratcheted back these programs – restricting eligibility, payments to physicians or waiting times. Recipients don’t protest as loudly as angry taxpayers.
So if your solons have resisted the “fiscally prudent” routes to solvency that slash through these programs, thank them. Admire their resolve. Promise to vote for them in the next election: if they voted to raise taxes, they will have opposition.
Finally, for the philanthropic fillip to the holiday, you usually whip out your checkbook to help a few nonprofits. Their “remember-us-this-holiday-season” flyers, mailed out every November, spur “shopper-guilt” even though shoppers are buoying the economy. Keep writing those checks.
But this season sign your name on another dotted line: an organ donor card. More than 80,000 people wait for organs; up to 30,000 people wait for bone marrow.
The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that each day 16 people will die, waiting for an organ. Download a card (www.organdonor.gov), and carry it with your license. Tell your family. In states that have no registries of donors, physicians don’t know who the donors are, unless the family speaks out. So give yourself, literally, to people you haven’t met.
This new holiday gift-list sounds like a Marquis de Sade fantasy – pain and discomfort for all. With luck, it will become a national tradition.
Joan Retsinas is former executive director of the Rhode Island Health Care
Policy and Planning Consortium. Her column appears frequently.
