So I've been thinking about the recurrence of nausea the other day, after my sojourn downtown, which is depressing as hell and not at all normal or how it always was and while the poor may always be with us they needn't be drug poisoned zombies, and how I've tied it all in with the Freedom Convoy's attack on civil society two years in to the pandemic, when I did the math and realized I'd broken my wrist a few months prior.
I remember the 14 hours overnight surprisingly well, too, sitting in a chair, cracked patella and badly broken wrist, masked, commiserating with the other broken people in need of healthcare, witnessing the abject failure of our social safety net, all while reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt (author of The Goldfinch). My Blond Companion, who could not be with me due to the pandemic, had smuggled in an umbrella to use as a cane, an apple, some nuts, cheese, a bottle of water. I wasn't hungry but I drank the water.
He was upset, which helped me be braver about it all, but it also made me more conscious than ever of our age difference, and how falling and breaking a bone was pretty stereotypical old lady of me.
And there's nothing like being in hospital in your 60s to have that "and so it begins" feeling you never expected to have even though I guess it happens to most everybody who lives long enough.
But then there's nothing like finally getting the care you need and being sent home with a knee brace and temporary cast, surgery scheduled for a week later, to have that "this is the first day of the rest of your life" feeling, too. Oh and that sick leave covered month off work, devoted to rest and recovery, in spite of the pain, is a cosy memory I make a point of visiting every now and again.
When I first fell the pain was so bad I wanted to crawl out into traffic and let a car run over my head. Just end it. Done.
A Facebook friend recently said of the followers of Queen Romana Didulo, who I'm pretty sure is in drag, but so what if she is, I guess, they've been "failed by society" to think they don't have to pay their bills and follow the rules like the rest of us.
But aren't they just taking the political ideology that preaches taxes are bad to its logical conclusion?
I remember paying healthcare premiums when I was an office temp in Toronto. It was annoying, $60 a year (I think?) because I didn't have any benefits, wasn't in a union, so no coverage otherwise. Premiums were phased out not long after but they seem to be making a comeback with these nurse practitioner clinics popping up.
Middle-class parents will sign up in droves, I think, willing to pay an annual fee of a few hundred dollars to belong to a clinic they can access whenever the need arises, while emergency rooms remain for the rest of us. And maybe it'll alleviate some of the pressure on the system as it is now, and maybe it won't, but whether it's through taxes or fees, healthcare was never free, and if taxes aren't going to be raised then fees will have to be paid.
What's important is to keep insurance companies out of it, those money grubbing merchants of fear who never pay out as promised. Ever. We know - we know - from our American cousins where insurance companies in healthcare lead - to unconscionable suffering and death. No, whatever we do, we have to say no to insurance companies being involved in our healthcare system any more than they already are, scamming old people and just generally scavenging around the edges.
So sure, let middle-class parents be shareholders of nurse practitioner clinics. They can afford it or they wouldn't be voting Conservative. And if they can't afford it, well they can just cancel hockey for one of the kids, or the family vacation to Disneyland, or give up one of the two cars and take public transit.
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