UPDATED: By Denis Campbell

On ‘Larry King Live’ former Senator Majority Leader Frist (R-TN) said any government run health option will “look like the mismanaged Indian Health Service.” The sorry state of that health service is partly why Paula Persichini-Petitti, director of the Black River Project, a woman who dedicated her life to bringing medicines, services, supplies and doctors to 3rd world nations, sits barely out of a coma unable to get the healthcare services she needs without friends raising at least $60 thousand dollars.

Were the Indian Health Service working, she would not have needed to be in South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation every summer for the last five years. While there, she tirelessly tried to help people across an area the size of Connecticut but with a road system making Zimbabwe look 1st world, get vital diabetes screening. Because of these screenings, emergency triage evacuations saved countless lives across the width and breadth of the USA’s own displaced Native American population. That’s right, you Senator, through years of neglect, and your colleagues allowed the creation of a 3rd world nation inside your own borders!

Trying to do what the Indian Health Service was incapable of doing, her vehicle was rear-ended by a pick-up travelling at 60 mph, placing her in a coma and seriously injuring a co-worker/volunteer. Both now require long-term recovery care. Both face financial ruin because of this “greatest healthcare system in the world” Senator.

That “greatest healthcare system in the world” you and your lobbyist pals bought and paid for with campaign ‘donations,’ ranks 37th in the world and eats up 16% of US GDP. The ‘socialist’ NHS system here in the UK uses 8% of GDP and covers everyone.

That “greatest healthcare system in the world” required Paula’s 78-year old very proud and ill himself father to re-mortgage his home. Too, her friends needed to raise $18,000 just to life-flight her from Rapid City, SD home to Boston for brain injury care. Her private (just say NO!) insurance covers “healthcare” but not the cost of bringing her back to receive that healthcare. As those following on Facebook and Twitter would exclaim, WTF?

That “greatest healthcare system in the world” falls even further through the looking glass because it will kick her out of primary care in mid-September because she will no longer be “acute.” It demands she come up with another $60,000 cash pre-payment for four months of rehab brain injury treatment in a specialist hospital or be shunted off to a nursing home. The rehab hospitals do not accept insurance and her insurance will only pay for parking her in a nursing home. So this vital woman who has done so much for so many has no choice in your system Senator.

This “greatest healthcare system in the world” you and your Republican counterparts in the Senate will fight to the death to preserve, has her (and thousands of others) teetering on the brink of personal financial catastrophe.

Ironically, you and Paula agree on one thing. The Indian Health Service is in disastrous shape. The rest of those in the USA, even with insurance have no picnic either. Were either health system working, that $80,000+ in ongoing expense friends have to raise for Paula would be covered by the huge premiums she has paid her entire adult life and indigenous Americans would be treated with dignity.

Now that she needs those services, Paula is effectively screwed. Those whom she has touched by her life’s work on www.blackriverproject.org are moving heaven and earth to help her. She has friends who care. What about the countless thousands without the ability to get this level of help and support?

Boston’s 80s local rock band O Positive (a band she helped to promote as a friend) reunited and came together two weeks ago at The Paradise for a benefit concert raising $15K for her care. They still are $45K short. Basically Senator, a dozen people have placed their lives on hold to help this amazing woman because your “greatest healthcare system in the world” won’t.

So when you sit in your cushy lobbyist paid office and do your TV pundit stand-ups, does a hint of a conscience ever work its way through? As a physician, when your colleagues bluff and bluster to kill reform because it will harm the incumbent opposition party President vs. helping your former constituents… is there ever a hint in this debate of moral obligation and doing the right thing?

Oh that’s right, you don’t care. No wonder that Oath you took as a physician is called the Hypocritic Oath.

Oh, what’s that, sorry, my bad, Hippocratic.