Threats don't scare me...

Okay, threats do scare me, especially when they're couched as promises from members of the government or those who would be.

The Clintama campaigns promise mandatory health care, having plans for the the government to make sure I'm properly cared for, just like all those lucky people in Fwance and England and Canada and other lands with socialized medicine and long, long waiting lists for treatment for little things like pneumonia and emergency organ transplant and such.

I think the one thing that always gets my goat about all this stuff they're pushing is the promise that it will drive costs down. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, wasn't that what they were saying Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) would do? Join an HMO, it will check you early and often (just like voting in Chicago), and catch diseases like cancer, hypertension, and such long before they became costly and debilitating blah blah blah.

Before the advent of the HMO (back in the dark ages, when disco ruled the day), my average office call to the local quack was about ten dollars. Now the clinic down the way asks for more than that, just as a "small deductible." Allstate only knows how much the actual bill has become! Between the corporate bureaucracies and the government red tape, a brand-name adhesive bandage strip, which I can buy in the store in boxes of 36 for $2.50, cost my best friend's insurer $68 per each at the hospital. I don't remember how much the other parts and labor cost. I'm pretty sure it was more than I make in a month, these days.

If I sprain my ankle, as I did last week, I can put ice on it (or put it in slush), elevate it, wrap it in an elastic bandage and take a couple of over-the-counter pain tablets, as, again, I did last week, costing me... uh... the bandage was one I'd had from a few years ago, the ice (slush) was provided by mommy nature in a puddle by the curb, and the painkillers were from Sam's Club, thousands for under ten bucks... you figure it out. My math is still sucky.

All I can say is, it was way, way cheaper than going to the urgent care facility. I'm walking just fine, too (not counting the occasional swear-word when I bump the bruises against something, again).

And it's pretty much what I'd have done thirty years ago, before the early years of the Health Maintenance Organizations. But then, the HMO began to insist that they peek at our every paper cut, listen to our every sniffle, and indirectly bill us and our employers for everything they did or didn't find. Meanwhile, the HMO stockholders started expressing concern that they weren't getting any real dividends. More bean counters were hired. Costs climbed. Prices climbed. It got expensive for all of us. So the HMO began to say "pre-existing condition" as though it were a mantra, any time somebody tried to upset them by filing a claim. And, then, people started suing the HMO for pain and suffering. The HMO started jacking up prices even more, and denying more claims. More lawsuits, more insistence on paying for piddly stuff and then for non-members, via new taxes, and voilá! Cries were made for more government controls, because the HMO was trying to recoup its losses via raising prices, and jacking up prices due to rising costs for operation just isn't cricket.

And, now, when it's obvious that the HMO bureaucratic system is really pretty crappy at "maintaining the health" of its members, Clintama want the government to take over the same failing system and run it the same messed-up way, only with the force of law behind it, too.

My family knows I have health issues. They know I can't afford medical insurance, let alone regular treatment. They also know that I've done my homework to the best of my abilities, and do what I can to keep myself from falling apart. I avoid "triggers," for mental and physical problems, tot he best of my abilities, and cope with the little daily inconveniences of being crazy, clumsy, and allergic to life in general. If something big happens to my body, I suppose I'll mortgage -- or just plain sell -- my house (if it's really big, I won't need the house any more anyway) to pay costs. I don't expect my family to bail me out (I'm eternally grateful when they do, but if they didn't, it wouldn't hurt my feelings). Why would I therefore want the government to do what I don't ask my own family to do?

And so the question must follow: why should the uninvited government, then, be butting in?

Where is the foaming left, with their old chant of "keep your laws off my body," now? They're campaigning to invade my body's privacy, instead.