NO CARE PLAN: Hospitals VS Bars

The amount of Americans currently lacking proper affordable health care is startling. I, myself, have been a card carrying member of the NO CARE plan since 2001. Leave one little job to follow your dreams and the electric blanket of co-payments and marked down dental work is replaced with the wet napkin of, "If it aint broke don't fix it. If it IS broke and you can't fix it yourself, you're fucked because YOU'RE broke." During the passed seven years I've willfully endured financial hardships in order to dedicate as much time as possible to writing and performing music. I've chosen to work countless, actually I could probably count them, freelance jobs in order to barely make ends meet and now consider this portion of my adult life without health care to be, "The Saving For The Big Operation Years." People who hate their jobs are sometimes afraid to aspire to something more in tune with their true interests and passions because leaving would ultimately entail the relinquishing of certain benefits deemed to be survival necessities, i.e. steady income, health care, pension, etc. These earmarks of stability are by no means anything to scoff at. I'm actually jealous because the "independent contractor" position down at the Bluetooth office doesn't exactly come with a built in benefits package.

I want affordable health care. I'd even take free health care and then tip the doctor, as if he or she are a bartender, depending on how personable, adept, and thorough they are. Then, the amount one tips determines how one is treated the next time one returns to the doctor's office just as how much one tips a bartender determines one's "buy back frequency" at any given bar. I'm running under the assumption here that the universal buy back round for all bartenders when serving a well established tipper is the second round. This, of course, is wishful thinking on my part. To follow suit, let's say one visits one's family practioner for a routine check up. During a previous visit one throws down a twenty spot as a tip for the old MD. A perfect world would have it that big tippers don't have to sign their names on waiting lists or make advance appointments. Big tippers can just roll up, "Yo, what up Huxtable? You mind taking a peek at my bum leg real quick? I don't have time to wait for an hour and a half. I gots hot tracks to make. Y'heard?" By this logic, a local clinic is considered the equivalent of a well kept neighborhood pub whereas a free clinic is akin to a dive bar. Hospitals can be compared to certain bigger bars/venues/clubs, the Webster Halls/Henry Fonda Theatres of the medicine world. Doctors with better booking agents get placed at better venues and eventually become big name surgeons. Seeing a specialist like a proctologist is the equivalent of going to a high end wine bar like Terroir. You're paying for the best, no surprises. Doctors cut off and refuse care to hypochondriacs just as bartenders use their discretion in deeming when a patron has had too much to drink.

It is not esoteric knowledge that paying for an emergency room visit out of pocket is not exactly cheap. It pretty much costs a thousand bucks just for them to clasp that little plastic bracelet with one's name and DOB to one's wrist. I went to the emergency room three summers ago, just finished making my fifty dollar a month bare minimum payments, and aside from making me wear the requisite assless paper half-robe the only thing they did for me was give me ass cream. The visit literally cost me eighteen hundred bucks. You scream. I scream. We all scream for ass cream, the expensive kind of course. On that day, amidst the pain, little did I know I would eventually wind up paying almost 2 G's for the Ben and Jerry's of ass creams, not cheap.

All kidding aside having no health care is no laughing matter. So, at the end of the day I can sleep assured knowing that, at the very least, I have the NO CARE plan going for me. Mark my words, you will hear about the NO CARE plan during the upcoming 808 Sounds Great Presidential Candidates' debates. Furthermore, the NO CARE plan at its very core is precisely in tune with Barack Obama's defining message of HOPE in that, "I HOPE my fuckin' thrombosed hemmorhoids don't fall out of my ass on Kennedy Boulevard because if they do I'm fucked." Have you ever seen a pair of Christmas balls the size of two grapes? One may pose the question, "Well if you knew you didn't have health insurance why the hell'd you go to the emergency room Einstein?" A fair inquiry. The easy answer is, of course, a question, that being, "If you looked at YOUR own ass and saw something resembling a Christmas ornament coming out of it where exactly would you go?" In times of dire circumstances when experiencing severe amounts of pain or in times of fear for your life the right thing to do is ALWAYS to seek immediate medical care. And surely the older one gets the less one wants to fuck around. It sucks that on top of experiencing the anxiety of not knowing what one is in for physically coupled with knowing exactly what one is in for financially one without health care is thereby forced to leave the hospital, no matter how much better one may feel, with brand new pains, courtesy of the hospital, in one's nose, from it having been paid through.

If all this works out and Palestinian Bluetooth's vision for a greater health care system comes to fruition you will be able to buy gift certificates for your husbands fortieth birthday colon examination at participating Outback Steak Houses across our beloved nation. It'll be great. The whole family will go out and suck down ribs and scrimps on the barbie with fudgie the whale cake for dessert or whatever the fuck... And then after the whole Outback staff sings Happy Birthday and little hubby blows out his candles the staff will say, "And here's your voucher for your free Outback Steakhouse Fortieth Birthday Colon Exam On The Barbie sir. Enjoy." Eventually one might even be able to earn reward points or frequent flier miles toward hospital visits under the Palesinian Bluetooth health care umbrella.

Palestinian Bluetooth's model for reconfiguration so that hospitals and clinics are more like bars while doctors and nurses are more like bartenders and barmaids can solve problems that extend far beyond our nation's current health care dilemma. Think about the repercussions for people's sex lives. Fellas, if you're really looking to impress that lady you've had your eye on at the office, who finally agrees to accompany you for an evening about town, don't foot the bill for dinner at Hearth. Take her to the emergency room of the local hospital and say you refuse to let her health insurance pay for it. If you think she'll be impressed when you splurge for that 2003 Bordeaux, how do you think she'll react when you start the evening off with a little His & Her saline IV injection? Buy two bags of IV and you're in there like swim wear. "How are you both doing? I'm Robert. I'll be your doctor this evening. Can I start you two off with some drinks? Might I recommend the saline IV apertif with a little hint of Nexium for the nausea?" For the price a hospital charges for a bag of fucking salt water you'd think you were being injected with Austria's finest Reisling.

In earnest, all I'm saying is that hard times call for reliable coverage. Perhaps it's time that we start thinking in different terms when thinking about coverage. Palestinian Bluetooth already has. I urge you to do the same. Ladies, and gentleman interested in female wigs, all the answers to your coverage problems await you at www.paulayoung.com. Learn more about "America's natural choice for beautiful hair." Considering that a wig company is in essence peddling artifice, the antithesis of 'natural,' one cannot help but be reminded of the old line, "Who are the ad campaign wizards that came up with that one?"
So, in closing, as the hairline of our current health care system recedes beyond repair we each need to ask ourselves, "If I were choosing a quick fix wig for myself, would I go with a wisped away kind of feel, with monofilament parts, open ear tabs, and a hand tied front with a neck extension while deep down inside knowing that I'm only masking the symptoms, offering the perceiver a seeming sense of 'all's good in the hood'?"

And furthermore, "Would I feel comfortable wearing a hair piece that bears a human name?" For example, "Hi, it's nice to meet you. My name is Rose. The wig that I'm wearing is named Iris." If you can answer these questions honestly then you'll be OK when it's time to cast your vote for 808 Sounds Great Presidential Candidates ElectorATEs.