October 29, 2009
Murderer shouldn’t get better health care than workers
A 45-year-old convicted murderer from Barron County is putting a face on the health care crisis facing Wisconsin and all Americans.
In 2002, Daryl Strenke used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot and kill his ex-girlfriend before turning the gun on himself. His plans at suicide were foiled by the emergency medical personnel who treated him and eventually airlifted him to a hospital in St. Paul. He was later convicted of the murder and received a 30-year sentence and is serving time at Columbia Correctional Institute.
The case has gained recent headlines because state corrections officials have approved Strenke for reconstructive surgery. The self-inflicted gunshot wounds left his face mangled and media reports have stated he can no longer talk or eat normally. Strenke, like all other state prison inmates, has his medical costs picked up by Wisconsin’s taxpayers.
It would be easy to have a knee-jerk reaction and say our job as a society is simply to keep Strenke alive to serve his punishment and his self-inflicted punishments are his just desserts. After all, we are told we should be responsible for our actions. However to take such a stand and cast those stones would be short-sighted. There are many others in Wisconsin’s prison system who require far greater medical needs as a result of their own actions than Strenke.
There is no doubt Wisconsin taxpayers should make sure inmates have access to health care and Strenke should receive the level of service that will hopefully make him less of a burden on taxpayers in the long run. In Wisconsin, you do not forfeit your humanity when you are incarcerated. It is frustrating, however, that the reconstructive surgery Strenke will receive is beyond the economic means of 45 million Americans who live without any health insurance.
What kind of message is sent when convicted murderers have access to taxpayer-funded healthcare while the working masses who pay for those services are left in the cold? Should these 45 million people without health care commit crimes in order to get the services they need?
Cases such as Strenke’s make people justifiably angry. After all, the vast majority of workers have seen their take home pay decrease as medical insurance costs have increased.
The solution is not to deny treatment for people such as Strenke, even though he denied life to someone else. The solution is to make sure access to affordable health care is available for everyone and not just for those who have either committed crimes or who hold public office.
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