Health care has become one of the hot potatoes of the political season and there is nothing like turning a life and death gamble for millions into a philosophical spitball contest that will fit on bumper stickers.
Gambling is a subject I know a little bit about. I have been known to check the odds on a few racehorses. I usually describe my betting as wheeling trifectas. That’s a fancy way to describe being a loser with a sunny disposition. There is nothing like watching the horse you wheeled at the top of your trifecta decide he doesn’t want to win but would rather hang with his buddies out of the money.
One of the many reasons gamblers often look like their heart has suddenly stopped.
Wheeling a bet is what is happening in the health care industry now. There is a lot of action throughout the state among many health care facilities, including a couple emergency departments along with plans for a new hospital in Covington and a new hospital is opening in Enumclaw.
Across the nation there is considerable action as health care facilities join hands. It makes you think the health care world has something in mind.
They do.
This makes me think of Edward G. Robinson in Billy Wilder’s 1944 film, Double Indemnity. He played a life insurance analyst who talked about actuarial tables and murder. Robinson told his colleague Fred MacMurray, who happened to be the murderer, there was a “little man inside” telling him something.
I think there are a bunch of Edward G. Robinson’s out there working for health insurance companies and health care facilities. Every one of them must have a little man inside telling them there is a bunch a people getting ready to jump into hospital beds, get themselves hooked to IV drips and squeeze the big button for the nurse.
My guess is those Edward G. Robinson guys are pretty certain a boatload of sickies are lining up at the door. The ‘60s and ‘70s must have been a lot worse than I remember.
The health care debate can be boiled down to its simplest form, which is who should get poked and prodded by squinty-eyed doctors. This little sword fight has been going on for a very long time.
There was Clinton in 1992, and Truman in the ‘40s.
But a couple of thousand years ago Socrates was walking around Athens dressed in an unpressed sheet and he had a few thoughts on health care. In Plato’s “Republic” Socrates said when a person was no longer useful to the society health care resources should not be used up on them. Seems like a funny position for a guy who had trouble dressing himself for the party. Apparently the Athenians took him a little too literally when they broke out the hemlock cocktail and encouraged him to drink up.
I have always thought the argument in our time breaks down into two categories. A Constitutional debate over the right to receive poking, prodding and general discomfort from people in white coats with funny haircuts. The other is, if only certain guys get the whole meal deal, how do you keep the ones who missed out on the cake from chopping off the heads of the king and queen. This was a political math problem the French royalty had a little trouble solving in the late 1700s.
Maybe the ticket is to beat the odds. We trick all the Edward G. Robinson guys with their funny calculators by one of two methods. Die quickly before anyone can get you to the hospital or don’t die. Both have downsides, I admit, but it will throw the number guys into a tizzy. They’ll be like a bunch of seventh graders squinting at their first algebra problem – N + 1L = 2stupid.
If the die really quickly or don’t die solution seems too hard, then rent a copy of Double Indemnity. A film noir murder movie always turns me into Mr. Sunshine and improves my health.
