Steve Jobs' Preferential Treatment Highlights 'Health Gap'

(MoneyWatch)  Yes, the rich are different from us. They have better health insurance. And, no matter what program President Obama gets through Congress, that "health gap" is likely to remain.

The media circus that followed Apple CEO Steve Jobs's recent liver transplant highlights this. Those with buying power go to the head of the line when it comes to the basic human desire for survival.
While details remain murky, it's clear the Cupertino, California CEO went organ-shopping. He found what he needed 2,000 miles from home at the Methodist University Hospital in Memphis and jumped ahead of 1,600 people who are also in need of a new liver.

"Jobs beat very long odds to get a transplant," says MSNBC.com writer Arthur Caplan, who noted that the creator of the IPod was hardly the best candidate, since his body was already compromised by cancer.

Brings back memories of Mickey Mantle. The Yankee slugger drank his liver (and himself) into a state of dysfunction. Even though doctors had also found cancer in his system, and the average wait time was four months, miraculously a transplant opportunity appeared in one day. Three months later Mantle was dead and that vital organ, which might have saved someone else's life, was buried with him.

Meanwhile the health care battle rages and Obama is beginning to backpedal on universal insurance. "The public plan, I think, is an important tool to discipline insurance companies," he told a White House press conference. That's a strong hint that he'd vote for a plan without a universal option if health insurers would rein in spending.

Universal care critics point out the "health gap" still exists in countries that have universal care. In Canada and the United Kingdom those who can afford it buy private insurance to avoid long waits, minimal care, and, for older patients needing reconstructive surgery, outright turndowns. While U.S. patients cross the border for cheaper medicine, Canadians cross the border for better doctoring.

Health insurance will be a tough sell unless Obama can show that every American will get at least a modicum of quality care in any plan offered. And Steve Jobs is the perfect poster child for the health gap between the CEO ... and the Average Joe.