Saving Omar Henry: An Argument For Boxer’s Health Insurance
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Correspondent
New York, NY (May 13th, 2013)– Gerald McClellan in Great Britain. Shannon Briggs in Germany. Omar Henry in the United States. The truth is, it really doesn’t matter where, when, why or what the circumstances. What does matter is when a professional athlete gets hit with a health crisis is how it is dealt with.
Mainstream America will long remember the deaths of public icons like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle, and Muhammad Ali when it happens. Mainstream America will less remember athletes like Jim Catfish Hunter, Lyle Alzado, Bobby Murcer, Johnny Lira, Superstar Billy Graham, Eddie Guerrero and Omar Henry.
So far as boxing is concerned, note the health problems are not all dementia and Parkinson’s disease. The underlying problem as I see it is there is no uniform lifetime health insurance for professional athletes involved in physical contact sports. In 2010, only 25 percent of early retirees and 16 percent of Medicare eligible retirees had health benefits through their former employers.
No greater example of the dilemma faced by professional athletes who earned millions but lack health insurance after the fact is illustrated than for Notre Dame, National Basketball Association and Olympic star Adrian Dantley, who is working as a Maryland school crossing guard for $14,685 a year with health insurance. Granted, Dantley’s motivations are not purely for the health insurance alone.
YouTube Adrian Dantley works as school crossing guard with health insurance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DR55RSpLRQ
What would strengthen the cause of professional boxing and Mixed Martial Arts today in the amateur and professional ranks is if a uniform health insurance is established to protect the medical needs of the fighters and anything medically which might arise in time, and after their retirement. Qualifications and standards for such medical insurance have never been set. Just look at the full contact injuries in hockey and football today. Athletes also contend with psychological issues relating to brain injuries.
There should be a concern to establish a permanent health insurance plan for all athletes in all sports around the world. Not all tragedies in sports can be prevented, but there will be peace of mind to a great extent when such sports medical health insurance is put into place as an established requirement. To proceed otherwise is to endanger the health of athletes in the long run, who lack such insurance.
The late boxer Omar Henry had hoped for a fight with Canelo Alvarez before he got sick with gall bladder cancer and passed away after three months at University of Chicago Medical Center. Lack of proper health insurance affected Omar’s ability to seek immediate treatment in Florida when he was suddenly ill, with time as a factor.
In an interview before going in for gall bladder surgery, Omar thanked his fans but faced life realistically. He hoped to come out of surgery okay, but,” If not, thank you all for all of your support, and like I said, another time. If worst comes, a lot of people don’t like talking about that, if something does happen to me tomorrow, if I become brain dead or die in surgery, like that, Just want to say, thank you all, thank all the fans for everything, you’ve definitely changed by life since I became a boxer, the sport of boxing changed my life. Without boxing, I don’t know where I would have been today. It definitely has made me the man I am today with maturity. It saved my whole life, and took me (to) a place I never thought I’d go, meet people I thought I’d never meet, from the president to famous singers to famous rappers and (to) places I thought I’d never go, everywhere. Boxing’s definitely been a great thing to me. I’m back to square one, I’m grateful for everything that’s happened to me since I’ve been in boxing.”
Omar Henry in the Ring Interview after Selders Fight (Last Fight) YouTube 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El3MI3AJ-uE
Omar Henry Video Interview I’ll Stop Canelo Alvarez on YouTube 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agqbNILM_0s
Omar Henry Final Radio Interview Before Surgery on YouTube 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvlVOr9RIS8
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