Explanation of Benefits

Los Angeles, June 15, 2009

By Danny McBride

Yup. That’s what it says at the top of the page. THIS IS NOT A BILL.

Okay fine, but it’s an explanation I can’t understand easily and I’m wondering why I pay so much a month for health insurance that leaves me still owing a ton of money to medical providers and labs.

We have to stop referring to ourselves as a civilized country. We are not civil. We are still as lawless in our behavior toward one another as we were in the days of Tombstone, Arizona in the 1880s- -Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and the Clanton Gang- -shoot out at the O K Corral. (By the way, they still re-enact a tourist version every day from 9:30 to 4:30 in the theater located next to the O K Corral.)

By now we all know that there are more than thirty countries that have better health care set-ups than we do. We may have good science in many areas, but our healthcare system is equal to the lawlessness of the old west.

“Doc, Doc, Help me! I’ve been wounded in a shootout.

“Well, first I have some forms for you to fill out. Then I need to get a pre-authorization.”

“Hurry, Doc. I’m hurt real bad.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Son, but your insurance doesn’t seem to cover random gunshot wounds. You’ll have to just lie there in the street until you stop bleeding. Besides, I’m a dentist and you appear to have all your teeth. I can’t help you, Son. Oh, and be sure to floss.”


We are an ignorant people, a silly people, the dregs of other societies lumped together as one blathering nation of malcontents, bigots, people who hate and hate lots of things- -holocaust museums, doctors, you name it- -and act on their hate by carrying out their own justice with their own guns just like Wyatt and the guys, although we look at Wyatt Earp as one of the good guys. It’s probably because he won the gunfight and survived to the ripe old age of 80, almost 81, dying in 1929 in Hollywood where he worked in the movies as an advisor on westerns. He would have lived longer but he didn’t have good health insurance.

The new administration arrived with all the hope and good will that any President has had in forty years. Those of us who remember those days of yesteryear recall the good feeling all over the country. I guess we hoped for a repeat of that, after years of flamboyant disrespect for the wants and wishes of the American people. But apparently not.

In 2006 the Democrats took over the Congress and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid became our new leaders. Did you think that something might change? Boy were you wrong. These buzzards run the same show we were entreated to before. Man did that suck. Now we are witnessing the same thing from our hero. Beautiful wife and kids. Sharp and funny. Movie star good looks. A team of supposedly the best and the brightest who will turn everything around. But guess what? Squat. Gitmo. Bailouts. Health care. Re-neg.

He seems to have lost his spine. We were going to close Gitmo, now maybe not. By the way, every time I hear someone say “Gitmo” I am reminded of the song “Guantanamera”, which, of course, is “Gitmo”. Beautiful song one hundred years old. Also used as the “El Pollo Loco” chicken fast food place theme song for their ads. Sing “El Pollo Loco” instead of “Guantanamera”. I digress.

We have shoveled money at the banks that created the financial nightmare.

“Hey, you lost all that money- -here’s some more. Try not to laugh.”

And we are going to invite all parties to the table to solve health care. That’s right, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the “for profit” HMOs and hospital and doctor services—you here them advertising. What does air time cost? Fine. It will be added to your bill. It’s a wonder some don’t say “a gratuity has been added to your bill as a courtesy.”

A courtesy??? Why, you…

So, yes, invite the health insurance companies and big pharma to the table, like an old west poker game, and then SHOOT them for cheating, dealing off the bottom, the way Maverick would have done it.

There’s only one way to fix healthcare. Nationalize the whole damn thing.

No more “for profit” medical care.

Having a healthy population is in the country’s best interest. No more pay to play. If I’ve got to go to the hospital, I go. Health care for the common good. No sick people leaning up against me in the subway. Nobody putting off that annual physical or that needed operation. Covered. All of it.

We don’t ask you to put a quarter in a box every time you pass a street light. At that rate you’d never get anywhere. The Water and Power Company is run for the common good. We don’t pay the Fire Department to come to our house but avoid other residences. They are for all, and of course, so are the Police.

“Excuse me, sir, but for us to keep chasing that bad guy it will cost you another fifty bucks.”

Can you imagine that? Well, health care is the same.

We must take over the insurance system and have it be like the military. We don’t ask people to protect and serve only if I send in my contribution. Otherwise we could be under attack and troops wouldn’t move until we all ponied up. Is that nuts, or what? Same deal.

We do incredible science in this country in the service of defense and attack deterrents. Look at our planes. Look at our guns. Hell no- -I ain’t fighting them. And that’s what most of the countries in the world feel as well. Even the so-called Bad Guys. And yet we don’t have to pay up per plane or it doesn’t fly. We’ve already spent enough money in Iraq to pay for this. And nobody blinks. If we used this money to make us all healthy and keep us all healthy instead of expanding our Empire we would all be better off. We are no longer the United States of America, but to the world we are De Los Imperio de los Estados Unidas with military bases in over 130 countries and territories. Rome looks like Freedonia by comparison.

A recent book by Chalmers Johnson has some interesting documentation of all this at this site: http://www.alternet.org/story/47998/ Seven Hundred and Thirty Seven American bases by this count. The British Empire and the Roman Empire had about the same number to police their worlds. Now we do it. How much does this cost? You don’t want to know. Could we make health care a necessary service the way the Post Office is? Of course. Why not? Big money interests pouring gazillions at this so it won’t work. Congressmen and Senators need to be re-elected every few years and they need LOTS of money for this. How can mortal men (and women) change a system that is paying them to fail? We are a hollow Empire if we cannot amend this system. While we’re out policing the world there could be a massive revolt at home. We haven’t got the guts of the Iranians silently marching in Tehran or of the Tiananmen Square martyrs. Two hundred years ago we might have, what with throwing tea into Boston Harbor and what not. But no more. We’re too fat and lazy. Unhealthfully so. We will collapse on our fat selves in another fifty years or we will take action.

You decide. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. I hope I have enough money in my checking account for my co-pay.

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