Luz Vazquez and millions of others rely on charities, such as the First Presbyterian Health Clinic in Kalamazoo, which employs volunteers toting garbage bags to procure drug samples from health centers once a month. Last year, they hauled in $554,000 worth of supplies for the uninsured. Jane Zwiers, who runs the program, says her clinic gets about 17,000 visits a year. 'The system is crazy,' she says. 'We need to scrap it and start over.'

Indeed. The cost of keeping an organ transplant alive costs on average $26,400 a year, while dialysis runs a patient $42,000 a year. And the cost of re-transplantation after organ failure can be as high as $3000,000. Despite this, many renal transplantees - some hospitals say as high as 55 percent of the patient pool - are left to hustle for medication. And hustling often means cutting back on or diluting one's supply of medication and risking rejection, which then costs taxpayers.

For over a year before my transplant, I lived with renal disease and the possibility of dialysis or death. After my operation, I thought I would at last no longer have to fret over a sick, failing kidney. I don't. Now, I worry about a healthy kidney failing. I eventually did pay for a blood test and know I am all right, but the worries about paying for the next one, and when my medications will run out, are daily. The promise of transplantation will be unfulfilled until transplantees have guaranteed access to immunosuppressive therapy. And the promise of America's medical technology will be a mark of shame until all Americans - including the 15 percent (and counting) now uninsured - have access to it. Until then, we'll continue to wait for the echo of Harry Truman's words 55 years ago - that adequate health care is a right of every American regardless of economic status - finally to fade.
This article orginally appeared in the December/ January 2001 issue of the now defunct George magazine.