Obamacare, Fourteen Years Later
My Personal, Ill-Informed Perspective On It
NB: This was supposed to have been written a month ago right after I got my colonoscopy, but as so often happens my RL got nuts, only in surprising and unique ways!
My ex-wife’s niece (who’s not really her niece, but I’ll write about that once I find out if I can without affecting matters) did some things that I honestly didn’t think she was capable of, and are why my ex’s sisters are now taking over as her caretakers. (You know the strong-willed women characters J.D. Vance wrote about in his novel that he alleges is a “memoir” Hillbilly Elegy? Like that, only for real—because Vance wouldn’t dare to be such a misogynistic pig if he’d really had women like them in his life!)
On with the show!
I went in for a colonoscopy recently after a few mildly annoying days, and one mildly unpleasant day, of “prep” which consisted of no solid food after an early light, low-fiber breakfast: No dairy or anything with fat in it, so anything with cheese, ice cream or yoghurt are right out; and no “red foods” at all, which include nothing purple or orange because they have red in them—which not only meant no red-colored Jell-os (have you ever realized how few flavors Jell-O sells that aren’t either red, purple, or orange*?) or broths (I had to double-check my Beef Broth after I got it home to be sure it wasn’t reddish-brown!), but no grape, orange, or cranberry juice, either. Then you either drink a few gallons of a preparation or take two rounds of pills with a lot of water to…clear out your colon, let’s call it, which means you’re getting up every hour or so to run to the john until your stool no longer has anything in it!
Adding to that, I was having some breathing problems yesterday—I have “mild-to-moderate” COPD thanks to over two decades of smoking, which I quit nineteen years ago(!), and the air quality was kind of filthy on top of it. The anesthesiologist, who was, I kid you not, a wild-eyed old Slavic gentleman,
kept insisting it wasn’t “safe” to give me a general anesthetic—so I was awake through the entire procedure! Yes, I got a local so it wasn’t painful, but it was…uncomfortable, kind of like a half-hour long water-and-CO₂ enema as you watch your colon from the inside on the nice large HDTV screen….
So, why am I telling you about about a (kind of) gross routine procedure older men and women are strongly encouraged by their health insurance provider to get? Because when I got to the hospital, I was informed before going upstairs that I owed the hospital $275—for a procedure my Gastroenterologist pretty much demanded that I get, and that is considered necessary by every doctor I’ve ever spoken with! $275 is a lot of money to a retiree on a fixed income as I am, which sums up the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare”, perfectly in my book: You have “access” to health care (as Notorious P-Lousy keeps reminding us), assuming you can afford it!
Most people who like Obamacare point out it’s an improvement over what we had before—but for me? After all the compromises Barack Obama made to get the ACA passed, not ONE Republican voted for it! So he did all that for…well, not “nothing”, but to give Big Insurance and Big Pharma a huge “gimme” in the name of a few half-measures that still don’t cover everybody and still include deductibles and usurious co-pays like the one I just paid.
And things haven’t gotten any better—in fact, in addition to the Right trying to get rid of those half-measures (Gods, I’ve come to hate Liberal “half-measures”!), Big Insurance still manages to not adequately cover most Americans. We need to tell Big Insurance to go fuck themselves, and Americans to bite down and deal with higher taxes in exchange for national health care. Let the insurance companies make their bloated profits off of high-end packages for rich people….
Bernie Sanders, who I still believe would have beaten Donald Trump in 2016 and who is far more deserving of being President than anybody else who’s run recently, pushed and continues to push for a “public option”—taxpayer-supported basic healthcare for all Americans, citizens and residents alike, no exceptions. This is what we should be aiming for, not an “expansion of Obamacare”—which is putting more money in Big Insurance’s coffers…to fight against everybody having health insurance!
Meatloaf Winks at You and Asks…Buy Daddy a Kofi?
I don’t charge subscriptions because I’m not remotely timely with my posts, but if you’d like to support my writing, a Kofi would be greatly appreciated. Even $5 would help….
* I refuse to believe somebody at Kraft-Heinz, the makers of Fifty-Seven Communists Varieties (there’s a story there, but I’m discursive enough as it is!), isn’t well aware of how many people prepping for colonoscopies turn to their products, and how many of them have red, purple or orange food coloring which make them inedible then! How about some nice Green Strawberry, or a line of clear-colored flavored gelatins?
Man, I am glad I got put under for my procedure!
Heh, heh.
That's all I got, and all that is required.