Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at my computer when I was hit by a sudden headache. It came on within seconds; the worst headache I’d ever had. Exquisite, excruciating pain; to borrow from Gibson’s Neuromancer, “…pain beyond anything to which the name of pain is given.â€Â A quick Google search suggested that this could be very serious and I needed to see someone right away.
I wrapped an ice pack onto my head with an ace bandage, then called a nearby clinic, but they didn’t have any appointments open that day, and suggested that I try the Urgent Care Clinic in Mountain View. That sounded like what I needed so I grabbed my wife and drove through Bay Area rush-hour traffic for 25 minutes to the clinic. During that memorable drive I found myself wondering what would happen once I got there. I realized that there was every possibility that my symptoms meant that I needed some serious treatment and that what I had could even be life-threatening.
We reached the clinic and I made my way to the desk, still sporting a now room-temperature cold pack wrapped around my head. That’s when they asked me the question I dreaded: “Do you have insurance?â€
I didn’t. But I did have a credit card.
I will say this for the people at that clinic: they are total professionals. They saw me quickly and handled me quickly with competence and compassion. Taking my vitals I discovered that my blood pressure (normally 120-something over 70-something) had soared to 184/106. Of course driving through rush-hour traffic, in serious pain, and contemplating a walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death might have had something to do with that. Trying to relax, I managed to get the systolic pressure down to the 160s. The doctor came in to see me and gave me a careful examination, then suggested that I might want a CT scan. It could be nothing, but then again, if it was something it was likely to be rather bad. The problem was that a CT scan runs about one grand. I opted for the scan, of course.
The CT scan took very little time and I was soon returned to the exam room where I lay on a bed with my head propped up, waiting for the results. It was there that I had a good chance to think about how my life could change in the next few minutes. If it turned out to be something serious, then the required treatment would certainly bankrupt us. I tried to mentally figure out how much room was left on the credit cards and whether it would even begin to cover the costs. The strategy was obvious; get the treatment and declare bankruptcy, as millions of American have had to do for so long. No other option. Life at the cost of livelihood. I reflected on my truly extraordinary circle of friends, hoping that I would still be able to enjoy their company for awhile. I wanted to go home and play with our cats, hang out with my wonderful spouse, continue blogging about making a better life in the midst of a chaotic economy, and so many, many other things.
But most of all, it hit me with a long and profound realization at the cellular level that for all the “reforms†of last year’s health care reform bill, ours is still a system in which personal wealth equals the right to live. I realized I was far less concerned by the medical issues than I was by the financial ones. We still live in a country where you can find yourself begging for your life in an American hospital if you don’t have money or insurance. It can still happen, and there is now a critical mass of conservative legislators who are hell-bent on removing even those few gains, all in the name of an evil ideology that cannot withstand encounters with reality. In a truly just universe, a very deep pit of hell would be waiting for the leaders of the health insurance industry. For their conservative enablers and champions in the House, there would be a Perdition still deeper.
Health care is not a commodity, it is a human right. A basic human right. Those who claim otherwise are your mortal enemies, and mine, for they would rather see you die than endanger the profits of those they shill for. As the debate over health care continues, never forget that.
The doctor came in and told me the scan was negative. Apparently my headache was the Mother of All Tension Headaches. The doctor also told me that it was very clear that I’m under way, way too much stress. Gee, I would never have guessed. Amazing what you learn in medical school. I got a modest discount for the visit, and a prescription for some pain medication. The bill for the CT scan will arrive in the mail. Not sure how I’m going to swing that one, especially since I have a new project to work on, which is reducing stress in my life.
As I’ve said before, when you are unemployed or otherwise on thin financial ice, health care is the one place where you can’t improvise your way out like you can with food, transportation, or even housing. We can exercise all kinds of creativity in other areas, but to make the world safer for those of us at or near the bottom, we must have full, universal health care. I urge you to fight, fight hard, fight dirty if you must to make it a reality.
