October 31st - Sissy Sartor

Sissy Sartor knows her birds. She’s not quite an ornithologist, but in Audobon Park on Halloween, when all I saw was a mass of white birds by the bayou (think pale flamingos), she saw Cattle Egrets, Snowy Egrets and Ibis’.

Sartor sees the same amount of distinction and detail in the current health care discussion, except here she is speaking from some authority; she’s an OB/GYN concentrating in fertility therapy.

Sissy Sartor with her dog Moxy in Audobon Park on October 31st, 2008

“I’m not seeing as much of it first-hand because of my field, but I still have some experience meeting people who have trouble getting coverage,” Sartor said. “Just last week a young couple came in and the girl, who was 26 years old, and couldn’t get insurance because she had high blood pressure.”

The couple, who was paying for their fertility therapy out of pocket, was just one of the 40 million American’s who are uninsured or under insured. Sartor says that no matter what the outcome of the election we need to start thinking about how to prevent people from “falling through the cracks,” but that we need to be careful to not to socialize the health system.

“I don’t want to see the system nationalized, but we need to construct a system to provide primary care to those in need.”

The VA system in this country is an example of a system that Sartor says inefficient and would only cater to the “lowest common denominator” care. When it comes to the question of whether or not health care is a right, Sartor thinks it is.

“It’s a moral right, and while that doesn’t make it constitutional, I’d say it’s something we need to do.”