NFL - In the Wake of Kevin Everett’s Life-Threatening Injury, Retired Players Will Testify About League’s Failure to Provide Adequate Medical Care

It’s the sight every football fan, player, coach, and - most importantly - family member dreads; a player lying unresponsive on the field. Often, whole cities breathe a collective sigh of relief when the player is able to indicate that he is all right, or better yet walks off the field under his own power.

Yesterday, Kevin Everett’s family was not so lucky. Everett, tight end for the Buffalo Bills, sustained severe damage to his cervical spine while attempting to tackle the Denver Bronco’s Domenik Hixon in the teams’ season opener. Everett, who dropped to the ground instantly unconscious, was able to communicate with doctors at the local emergency room where he is being treated. He is reported to understand the extent of his injury. Everett’s doctors report that a full recovery is an unlikely scenario; it is more probable that Everett will sustain permanent paralysis to at least some degree, if he survives at all - and doctors have made it clear that he is not out of the woods yet. Everett is being kept in deep sedation and is breathing with the help of respirators for the next few days to prevent him from further injuring the spine or cord, and to allow doctors to asses the extent of the injury.

Though his career is almost certainly over, Everett is lucky in one respect - the injury happened in front of America during a game. This ensures that he will immediately receive the best available medical and rehabilitation care when he awakes.

Not so for thousands of retired NFL players, who have already testified in the United States House of Representatives that the League’s disability program is woefully inadequate to the needs of its retired athletes. The NFL has responded to the push for improved post-career medical care for players by stating that it already provides a generous plan, and silently banking on the fact that average American, who is in debt and relies on a job benefits package to supplement the cost of medical care, will not side with the players in their march for improvements to their own care.

Here’s the thing: The NFL pulls in an estimated $7 billion per year. You read right, that’s billion with a “b”. So why do they not provide the players, whose bodies are systematically destroyed in the interest of the game throughout their careers in the NFL, with adequate medical services upon retirement? According to Harold Henderson, who oversees the NFL retirees’ benefit system, the answer is that they can’t afford it.

“I think [the benefit system] is well-planned and orchestrated,” said Harold Henderson… “People who are hurt during their employment, there’s a very generous package in place to take care for those disabilities. But the fact of the matter is, almost everybody leaves football because they can’t play anymore. If you paid everybody for that, you would be putting everybody on a permanent stipend. There’s no logic for that and no way to afford that.”

The League currently offers “vested” players (who have played full-time for a minimum of three years) high option family insurance for five years after they retire from play. After that time, the players, whose bodies are essentially destroyed from their years in the NFL, are left to find their own insurance. At best they will receive minimal coverage for outrageous and potentially unaffordable premiums, or they and their dependents will be left without insurance altogether. Despite high rates of neurological illness and injuries, depression - both associated with repetitive concussions - and the obvious physical ailments in joints and muscles (the seriousness of which has only begun to become apparent after the five year mark) the League has barely paid lip service to increasing the help offered to retired players by offering them health seminars, as if they could choose whether or not their bodies will feel the effects of the years of pounding. And lately one can find a great deal of chatter about how fatter players are twice as likely to die young, allowing the League to displace blame off of its money-grabbing practices and onto the lifestyles of individual players themselves.

For better or worse, professional athletes are treated like idols in the United States during their careers. Yet it seems that even they are prey to the failures of the American healthcare system. Their fight will return to Capitol Hill on September 18, this time to address the U.S. Senate. If they can’t find a way to receive adequate care with celebrities and collective bargaining agreements leading the way, what chance do the rest of the more than 43 million uninsured Americans have?