Socialized Medicine

My mother liked to say that she went down to the valley of death during my birth. 12 hours spent trying to push my infant body from her womb. Finally the doctor clasped my fragile head with steel forceps and dragged me from my mother's body. The procedure is a common practice in childbirth, however my skulls still bears the indentation of the obstetrician's surgical tongs. I survived that encounter with the medical profession and avoided hospitals for the rest of my life other than a couple of stitches here and there. My daily intake of medicine consists of 4 herbal capsule of cryptolepsis buchanani and several glasses of alcohol.

Last night some moonshine while watching the Celtics-76ers game at Frank's.

My local on Fulton Street in Brooklyn.

This morning I woke with my skull filled with felt. A mild hangover is my most common ailment. No sore muscles bones since I stopped playing basketball 5 days a week. My remedy for the morning-after sickness is a long hot bath. After a long hot soak my restitution-coefficient was hovering around 30%. A good sleep would restore another 30% by the next day's dawn and a greasy breakfast of bacon and eggs would top up my energy reserves.

Unlike most Americans I believed good health was a result of sleep, hot baths, herbs, and organic eating habits, plus nothing scared sickness from your body like threatening it with death-defying bouts of drinking. At 58 my medicine cabinet was home to a bottle of flu syrup and an unopened bottle of aspirin.

"You should get health insurance." Richie Boy was worried about my health. He depends on me to be at work every day. Never on time, but at work nevertheless. Stress deflection is another detour from illness.

"I can't afford it." $300/week is the minimum cost for a health plan offered by the insurance companies. My salary supports my two families in Thailand and a working life in New York.

"It's only____"

"I know how much it is." I've asked Richie Boy and his father for a raise. They have yet to come through for their only employee.

"Well, you just got money from your father's estate."

"Yeah, and what?" I hate the idea of giving money to the insurance companies. Obama's Health Plan neither. I'm healthy and I intend on staying that way, although this summer I was speaking with a farmer leading an upstate organic co-op. The 62 year-old looked in top form, but he admitted that he had suffered a heart attack at the age of 58.

My age.

"Up to then everything was fine."

And so far everything is fine with me too.

Of course I am an Irish citizen, so I should never get so sick that I can't board a flight to Shannon and take a taxi to the nearest hospital. Socialized medicine might be decades away from the USA. It's only 6 hours distant from JFK.

And there's also plenty of Guinness on tap.

Like the adverting states, "It's good for you."