J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD

Health Care Blues

            Imagine the following exchange on the phone:

“Is this 911?”

“Yes.”

“I have an armed intruder in my house.  Please send the police right away.  I’m afraid he’s going to kill us all.”

“I’m sorry.  From our database, I see the household you are calling from does not have anyone who is employed and therefore you are not entitled to police protection.  You’ll have to fend off the intruder yourself. Bye.” (Click.)

Or imagine this scenario, which might hit a bit closer to home for those of us who have a family member who is employed:

“Is this 911?”

“Yes.”

“I have an armed intruder in my house.  Please send the police right away.  I’m afraid he’s going to kill us all.”

“I see from our database that your employment provides you with our Best Blue  police coverage.  Best Blue is a wonderful protection plan.  We will be able to send an officer out just as soon as we receive your credit card number for your $10  copay.  Also, once the officer arrivees–assuming your credit card payment is approved by Mastercard–he will be able to use his revolver to stop the intruder but not his shotgun.  You’ll have to pay the full cost of shotgun coverage yourself.  With the Blue plan, the officer can pursue a suspect on foot free of charge to you, but if the officer needs to pursue in his cruiser, you would have to foot (I’m so sorry for the pun) that bill yourself.  Also, we would not be able to provide you with the aerial support that we provide our Gold members but, don’t worry, almost nobody needs that kind of service.  And finally, as it states on page 28 of your coverage manual, Blue coverage does assume you are at least a Brown Belt in Karate, so that statistically you would be able to fend off intruders half of the time by yourself . . .”

Sounds pretty bizarre, right?  But we Americans accept the same reasoning all of the time with respect to our health care coverage.  And it’s going to get even more interesting— and that’s a euphemism—once national health reform is fully implemented.

Why is that?  Because the simplest and fairest and most ethical and least costly option for health reform, namely single payer national health insurance, is not the law of the land.

For more see:  pnhp.org

Steven Pinker says that the level of violence we are currently exposed to is less than ever in history.    The chances of being murdered or killed in war or the victim of an assault are far lower now than they were in any previous era and the conclusion is clear:  our age is far safer than any that has preceded it.

So why do so many people feel targeted, feel like they are in the crosshairs of  disease or fate or terrorist attacks or so many other potential sources of pain  from without?  Because it’s easier to look outside ourselves for threats to our well-being than to look within at the biggest threat, namely things we do to ourselves willingly day in and day out.

Exactly what am I talking about?  Cigarette smoking kills a minimum of 400,000  Americans every year.  Poor diet and lack of exercise take out another 300,000 people nnually.   So why all of the hype about bad lettuce (last year it was pistachios, by the way), sharks, earthquakes, terrorists, and so many other things that are almost definitely NOT going to kill you? Because tobacco, bad driving, and virtually all of the other things likely to actually kill any one of us are, alas, boring.

For a similar discussion, see my piece at Time.com from 2001 after the anthrax attacks:   http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,180457,00.html

Welcome aboard.