Count Your Blessings...You Could Be Canadian

When I retired from my week-to-week corporate career, I also retired from the American health insurance system. Unemployed and self-employed people don’t deserve health care. If they selfishly choose not to participate in the ownership society by working for Halliburton, or a subsidiary, vendor or customer of Halliburton, they should have the common decency to pass away. The American health insurance system is willing to take only so much risk. If their spyware finds that you are not spending at least 60 hours each week in your cubicle in a sealed environment, you are clearly exposing yourself to dangerous levels of fresh air and sunshine. The odds that an escaped felon will successfully acquire a firearm at WalMart are manifold greater than the odds that a corporate parolee will find health insurance in the private marketplace.

My blood pressure is perfect. My cholesterol numbers are perfect. All of my piss-in-a-cup numbers are perfect. My body mass index is perfect. I don’t have headaches, stomach cramps or rashes. The timing of my daily constitutional is more accurate than an atomic clock. I don’t shit blood, I don’t shit applesauce, I don’t shit walnuts. I shit shit. Perfect shit. I don’t piss blood, I don’t piss air, I don’t piss ooze. I piss piss. Perfect piss. I don’t have any TV diseases. I don’t have erections over four hours, inches or times a year. I don’t have nightmares, night sweats or a knight-in-shining-armor who’s HIV-positive. I am all-around fucking perfect.

Not to the health insurance industry. They don’t want to take a risk on perfection. Something’s bound to happen, and it’s gonna be big. Whaddya mean, you’re not on medication? You should be. Everybody’s on medication. Whaddya mean you visit your family practitioner every year for a check-up? What’s wrong with you? Why are you going to the doctor? What are you hiding?

I was never asked about my diet or exercise regimen. I was never asked about alcohol consumption or use of illegal narcotics. If I consume three Sausage McMuffins for breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, a fifth of Vodka for supper, and a vein-busting hit of horse for dessert, they don’t care. They want to know if I take any vitamins or herbs. Self-medication is a bad thing.

I did finally procure health insurance, after being declined by all of the insurance companies that sponsor golf tournaments. Those insurance companies are enamored with fat guys with golf carts and caddies; the consummate flag-bearers of American vitality. I bought my insurance from Bob’s Insurance and Live Bait Emporium, but only after I lied and told them my heart hurts. Didn’t want to scare ‘em away with my invincibility. My policy carries an exclusion for maladies of the heart and related organs. The deductible is "how-much-you-got?" and the copay is the net present value of any future inheritances, gifts and bequests. I have a shiny plastic card, though, and an encyclopedic volume filled with all of the stuff they don’t cover. As soon as someone has the unmitigated gall to fall ill from something that’s not excluded, Bob issues a new encyclopedia.

George Bush wants me to have a Health Savings Account. If I scrimp and save, I could have upwards of $5,000 in that account in a matter of a few years. One day in the hospital with butt fungus, and it’s all gone. Then I have to pull out my encyclopedia of exclusions and check the index for butt fungus. Yep, there it is. It’s only covered in Texas, and only if contracted from an Eskimo while spreading the gospel in Argentina.

There’s no getting ahead of Bob. His bait has better insurance than I have.