This is going to be all about me and not about me at all and it will be a rant. So if anyone is actually reading this, you are forewarned.
There are currents of events that sweep past all of us, whether or not we choose to listen to the news. I am not talking about some event in a far-flung land which we choose to ignore, thinking it does not have any importance in our lives. I should not be surprised at how clearly a debate on a national level can so quickly become personal, directly affecting people whom I care about very much and yet here I am. Of course, what alters one of us alters all of us, no matter what distance the event is flung to. From the West, Mr. Donne immortalized our interconnectedness. From the East, pluck one jewel in Indra's Net and everyone is touched. If one is a Gaiaist it is the butterfly's wing beat in a jungle tree. We are rowing the same boat folks.
And the Rant? Yes. Here we go: I have to here, just one more time, how these United States have the greatest health care system in the world, I am going to scream so long and loud that I am going to suffer a hemorrhage to something important and require extensive and expensive medical testing and treatment. To make matters even more infuriating, these empty-headed food trough wipers that make up the insurance-company-ass-sucking, reactionary, free-market boot-strap pulling rich parasites that protect the vested interests want to ensure that all control of health care dollars resides in the pockets of the afore-mentioned ass-sucked insurance companies. Wait, I'm just getting going......
Yeah, it all theory until it ain't. I could wade into the debate about how socialism is going to take away everything that we hold precious and dear, including ours guns and granny's longevity and the right to choose our own doctors but I choose not to. Instead I am going to keep this rant close to home, the above digression about how we are all interconnected aside.
Someone that I hold very dear required surgery to avoid a nasty flat polyp that was pre-cancerous. The surgery was not "major" in the sense of being opened up like a fish, but if you were going through it you would certainly not call it minor. This was a day surgery that involved a general anesthesia. There was no overnight stay in the hospital. Total time at the hospital from check-in to discharge was less than twelve hours and almost six hours of that was waiting for the operating room to open up. Anxiety levels got so high from the wait that valium was served up.
The bill for this medical event was about $25,000. Of that we were responsible for about $4,500 in insurance co-pays and percentage responsible. Am I thankful that modern medical testing found the problem before it became cancer and killed my Schnook-ems? Yes I am. Am I blessed and lucky that I have a job that provides me and my family with insurance so I am not being thrown out of my home because I am bankrupt due to medical bills? Yes I am. This is where is is not about me. The issue is that for millions and millions of our hard-working friends and neighbors, there is no such luck. For many people in this country the choice would have been have an operation to remove a pre-cancerous polyp and be $25,000 in debt, possibly homeless, or don't have the operation and take your chances with the Big C. That choice, folks, is one people around you are making all the time in this, the country with the Greatest Health Care System On The Planet. Phooey!
I have a good friend who works hard every day. He has insurance provided by his employer while he is out busting his ass trying to get seriously disadvantaged people in our city off the streets and into some form of housing. He does work that lots of us would rather not do dealing with people whose very existence some of the food trough wipers would rather not even acknowledge. My friend's wife is not covered by his insurance. That would cost about $900 per month. Social service pay scales being what they are, this amount of money off the top every month is not just having to sell one of the summer homes or maybe not buying that extra yacht for the berth in Kennebunkport. No, its more of an impact than that. What $900 per month for insurance for a working man adds up to is profiteering and barbarism on the part of the insurance companies of this country who are protected by all of the politicians that they buy off with the blood money they suck out of the working people of this land.
Yeah, like I said, its a rant. And every word of it is true. If you look around, you won't have to go far amongst your friends or your family to find cases far more egregious than the two I have mentioned.
Why oppose health care reform in this country? Well, if you have the Greatest Golden Egg in the Entire World, I guess I can understand why the insurance pirates would be wanting it back.
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