“Hallelujah for him,” she laughed. “By the end of the week he will know whether he needs to get his affairs in order.”
Some people say that if you can save a life, you can make thousands of dollars in a matter of days, but in most cases, I think it's a good thing if you can get it. In a world where blueberries cost $8 and interest rates are rising, this becomes increasingly impossible. The house we live in is too expensive to afford. And anyway, it's not like health care is better for you or for any of us if you pay for it yourself. Just ask Cathy MacNeil, author of Dying to be Seen: The Race to Save Medicare in Canada.
But it's not just about paying medical bills. This strawberry-filled nirvana of care is just a snapshot in time. We know this man's bad colon connection won't be the last of his health care problems. Add in a few surgeries, blood tests, x-rays for tennis elbow or worse, cancer treatment, and don't forget your family and mental health. For most of us, paying for care quickly became impossible.
But with the endless reports of patients dying while waiting, hospitals without beds and emergency room deaths due to exhausted health care workers, it's easy to forget this. There is despair. Someone has to fix it. As a friend of mine recently said, “We have been put in a position of begging for medical care.” And because healthcare is like life, yes. That's right. Most of us can't afford to be too proud to beg.