****Invasion Of The Body Cavities

You know you're getting old when you don't fit in the culture anymore.

I don't like socialized medicine (OBAMACARE).  I don't understand it. I don't see any use for it and I certainly don't see how it is improved or how it improves my life.

I grew up in a time when most people didn't have a health care plan.  We had doctors; respected men we knew in our towns and churches whose practices were local.  They knew us and we knew them.  When we got sick, we called them.  Sometimes they came to our homes with their little black bag and they treated us.  Sometimes minor operations were performed in their offices which, in many cases, were in their homes.  My sister and I had our tonsils removed in our doctor's home.  When we woke up, his wife served us ice cream in their own bed. 

We paid for his services when they were rendered.  No problem.  And if it was a problem, the doctor would just carry the charges on account.

Now I am FORCED into some kind of government approved one-size-fits-all PLAN that I don't want and don't need (unless, by chance, I get pregnant and want to abort).

I don't even know my doctor.  He (or maybe she) has some strange name I can't pronounce.  I have never met him.  For over a year my service provider has been hounding me with letters and phone messages to make contact with them.   They keep bugging me for stool samples.  They want me to put in in an envelope and mail it to them.  I thinks that's illegal.  The post office has rules about sending hazardous, explosive, or harmful contents.  I'm sure my stool sample would be classified as one of those and a violation of U.S. Postal Service laws is a Federal offense.  I just want to be left alone.

Last week I got a warning notice.  My doctor scheduled me for a lab test.  I was instructed to go to any of their multiple facilities' labs; my paperwork would be in their data system.  I was told that if I didn’t cooperate, my coverage would probably be dropped.

Whoa, really?  I wondered how bad that could be if I were “dropped.”  Well, anyway, I drove thirty miles to the medical center and checked into the lab.  Forty stinkin’ bucks - that was the amount of my "copay."  In the old days I would have paid the forty dollars for the office visit.  The only thing different now is that I have a lousy health care plan that I HAVE TO PAY FOR before they charge me a forty dollar copay.  How is that better?

So I was there less than ten minutes from check in to discharge -- Paid the forty bucks, walked down the hall to the lab, and, as if forty bucks wasn’t enough, they even TOOK MY BLOOD and all I got out of the deal was an elastic tourniquet with a cotton ball over the puncture; I ditched that in the trash can before I reached the exit.  Oh yeah, and I got a receipt telling me that the forty bucks will be "applied toward your total charges for services you will receive today or during this admission.  I this does not cover your full financial liability, you will receive a bill for additional charges....(and blah, blah, blah).

Why does he want my blood?  What is he going to do with it?  What’s he looking for?  I’m not sick.  I didn’t call him.  Is he going to ask me a bunch of personal questions?  Is he going to want to follow up with an invasion of my body cavities?  Well that is never gonna happen!  Does he expect me to change my diet?  Fat chance!  Is he going to start making me take pills?  That's gonna be hard to swallow.  I am not going to give up pizza and chili cheese dogs and I don’t want to take pills.  Is he going to ask me if I have any firearms in my house?  I'm a Conservative Christian American Patriot; of course I do but it’s none of his business.  Maybe he’s going to diagnose me as psychologically disturbed because of my bad attitude.  Well it's my attitude; it's the only one I have and I intend to KEEP IT.

I don’t like this.  I think it's the doctors who make people sick.  Lots of people I know, who were just fine before going to see their doctors, came back with some serious new condition or ailment and a chest full of prescription drugs.  I don't want no stinkin' institutional management of my health care; I just want to be able to call a doctor when I am sick.  How many more times am I going to have to fork over forty bucks for some services I didn’t ask for and don’t want before they just LEAVE ME ALONE?   Maybe I should just go curl up and die.