by
The Onion *
=== // === // === // ===
[ Nation Recalls Simpler Time When ... ]
WASHINGTON—With the
Affordable Care Act now making it possible for a greater number of Americans to
purchase medical coverage, the nation looked back this week and fondly recalled
a simpler time when its health care system was broken beyond any hope of
repair.
Describing a more innocent
period in the country’s history—before opponents of the act temporarily shut
down the government, and before the disastrous rollout of the new insurance
exchanges led to widespread public exasperation—citizens shared with reporters
their warm memories of what they called a bygone golden era.
“Back then, if you couldn’t
afford health insurance and got really sick, you went bankrupt, plain and
simple,” said Dominique Otis, a Modesto,
CA mother of three. “They didn’t
have this whole mess of lower-cost options, or all these subsidies you might or
might not qualify for based on your income. People didn’t have to deal with any
of those headaches. They just went ahead and died of preventable causes.”
“Those were the good old
days, ya know?” she added with a sigh.
According to nostalgic
sources, there was a time when Americans who lost their jobs and the benefits
that came with them simply went without insurance, and that was that. During
this halcyon age there was reportedly no way anyone who was out of work could
afford health care, and if people had a serious preexisting condition, they
knew for certain they would never again qualify for decent coverage.
Harkening back to that less
complicated past, citizens noted, for example, how parents who had no way to
pay for their newborn baby’s much-needed surgery never even bothered getting
their hopes up, but simply accepted that their child would never have a first
birthday party.
As they spoke with reporters,
many Americans reminisced about the comfort they once took in the predictable
dysfunction of this status quo.
“When I had esophageal cancer
and needed $180,000 worth of treatments not covered by my health plan, I knew
immediately I’d lose my house,” said 58-year-old Tobias Czwerda of Braintree,
MA, who smiled as he flipped through snapshots of the Christmas he and his
family spent in a homeless shelter. “Yes, sir, things were simpler then. You
knew in advance that no matter how much you argued with your insurance company,
in the end it would always come down to the same two options: pay or die.”
“Call me old-fashioned, but
there was something reassuring in that,” he added.
In a Gallup poll conducted this month, 72 percent
of respondents agreed that even though the health care system had consistently
screwed them over in the old days, at least they had known exactly where they
stood. In addition, 65 percent said that while the most expensive illnesses
were effectively a death sentence back then, there had been a certain peace of
mind in knowing that if you ever got that sick, you would soon be gone and not
have to worry about the hospital bills.
Furthermore, 89 percent of
Americans confirmed they had taken some small solace in the fact that if they
needed money for a life-saving operation, they could always tape a photocopied
image of themselves to a collection jar, place it in a local supermarket
checkout line, and hope for the best.
“Remember when you couldn’t
afford to see a doctor and so you just waited and waited and waited until you
absolutely couldn’t wait any longer, and then you went to the emergency room,
where they did too little too late and charged you tens of thousands of dollars
for it?” Waukesha, WI resident Keith Donaldson said. “I guess
those days are gone forever.”
“Except for the tens of
millions of Americans who will remain uninsured even under ObamaCare, of
course,” he continued. “They’re still fucked.”
_____________________________________________
* The
Onion – News.Issue 50-02 – Jan. 15, 2014
