I don’t think Orwell could have made this up, ‘1984’ didn’t have nice folks on the phone saying ‘God bless you’. Maybe cause it’s August, I can’t write a brilliant analysis of our health care ‘system’. I keep ending up in the same place–the bathroom.

This story is about a man who had alarming abdominal pain and went to the emergency room. He had an application in for insurance, but it had not yet been approved–the corporation just took his check for a risk analysis, 100% of the risk to the petitioner for insurance, apparently.

So in the ER the doctor orders a CT scan, another doctor suspects a tumor, but the specialist sees the real reason for the blockage. Easily cured. And why the heck couldn’t the patient have figured it out himself? Did he think the ER doctor should be responsible for ruling out simple, benign causes before ordering expensive tests? Where’s the profit in that?

Who’s to blame? That deadbeat patient of course. Insurance denied.

This is one reason that people feel safer with magnets and coffee enemas.

‘First do no harm’ includes not doing financial harm and not causing unnecessary worry. How do we reconcile that with the principle of profit–charge the most for the least? That’s the ethic of your insurance company. It’s full of nice people who say ‘God bless you’, but when the bill comes in you won’t have a prayer.