Fan Friday « Robin Writes

Yeah, yeah. New year, new me, blah, blah, blah.

New me who is apparently not going to have health insurance.

Let’s talk about that.

The very definition of insurance is protection from catastrophe. Back in the old days, if you had health insurance, it was in case you ended up in the hospital for surgery or had a heart attack or whatever. If you went to see a doc, you paid him. Period.

Now, of course, the almighty government, in collusion with insurance companies, has decided that you MUST HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE or you will have no health care.

That is bullshit.

Health CARE is not the same thing. ACCESS to health care is NOT the same thing.

Anyone in the US can call up a doc and make an appointment; or go to the ER; or go to a clinic. ANYONE. Sure, in rare instances, there are no docs, and sometimes even your regular doc will not have an opening for weeks, at which time your illness will have resolved or you’ll be dead.

So.

I don’t mind paying, say, $100 a month “just in case” and maybe $50 to see a doctor. Not at all. Heck, even ramp that up to $75 for a specialist. Docs schedule something like 8-10 patients per hour, and that comes to $500 per hour, using that $50 as a basis.

But wait, you say, they have expenses too—student loans, office rent, equipment, employees, malpractice insurance. There’s that word again . . .

Yes they do. They have a business, just like many people. Let’s take an 8-hour day: $4500 income per day, at 50 weeks out of the year, equals well over one million dollars.

All that aside, because I don’t begrudge anyone making money, quite a few of those employees are present for the sole purpose of dealing with billing and INSURANCE stuff! And the other side of this is, again, that word: insurance for malpractice.

Basically, they’re raking it in and paying it right back out. I’m not blaming doctors.

I’m blaming the insurance scam.

They scare you. They jack up prices. Case in point, my blood pressure medicine is Inderal. It’s been around for decades, as has its generic. It was $4 a month, and this fall it zoomed up to $100 a month.

There is not one single thing you can say to me about research and development driving costs. For DECADES this drug has been on the market.

If the government wanted to actually help, they’d put a cap on drug costs.

If the government wanted to actually help with healthcare, they’d make sure everyone could get an appointment at a reasonable cost per visit.

I’m going to stop now. I feel my blood pressure rising, and since the only way to have even sorta/kinda affordable meds, I’m going to have to pay over $900 per month for so-called insurance instead of the $22 I’ve been paying over the last couple years.

When I use even three visits per year, and three lab tests, paying out-of-pocket would cost me around $75 a month.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. President.

So, you probably know that there’s a bunch of stuff on the Internet about “divide and conquer.” You know, where someone, somewhere, is just stirring up stuff to get us all at each other’s throats . . .

Let’s think about this.

Back in the old days, I sure don’t remember anyone yakking about the “correct” holiday-time greeting. I still maintain, however, that the Internet itself is the cause of a lot of this because we wouldn’t know a tiny percentage of things happening if it weren’t for that.

When I was a child, we’d drive around our area to look at Christmas lights. If there were no lights, we’d usually see a menorah in the window. No big deal. Very people went out-of-town for Christmas, because family was nearby and, well, who the heck would take a vacation then?

People would shop, either for Christmas or Hanukkah, iterate the appropriate greeting depending on their religion, and life went on. Granted, the area in which I grew up was primarily Christian and Jewish, and I’ll bet it was like that where you lived too.

Back then.

Now, the talking heads are telling us we should be OFFENDED if someone doesn’t give us the “correct” greeting based on our particular religion. Like they’d KNOW what that religion is . . .

I call bullshit.

Because, really, are you “offended” if someone says “happy holidays?” I’m not. Besides, aren’t there at least two holidays that Christians celebrate around this time of year? Christmas and, hey, wait a minute—New Year’s! That’s plural, folks. So “happy” to both, right?

I do remember my grandma shaking her head over some signs and cards that said “merry Xmas,” believing that “they” were x-ing out Jesus; then again, I also remember hearing that the X stood for the cross.

Can you imagine what would have been all over the Internet then?

Now, I do see the occasional social media post decrying the lack of “merry Christmas” greetings and so forth, but really, these are the same people regurgitating the same old posts and no one really cares.

Kind of like the Starbucks cups. Sheesh.

Hey, y’all know what you believe and you can shout it from the rooftops—that’s free speech. Whatever happened to manners, though? If someone tells me “happy Hanukkah,” I’m going to smile and say it right back.

You can have any kind of holiday you want, and you can greet people however you want, and that’s okay with me—and should be with anyone else. Unless you’re being a douche. Can’t discount that. But you know what? You can even act like that too if you want, although I doubt you’ll get many greetings of any kind after the first few times.

But that’s my point. Divide and conquer. Someone’s pulling the strings and yanking our chains while they’re doing it.