Sick in America.

Thursday night, on the windswept tundra of, Butler Elementary School, my son's soccer team won a game. I took him and one of his teammates out to dinner at, Shuhiro in Midvale, a fabulous, Japanese restaurant, and then came home.

Just as a side note? If you take two 14 year old soccer players out for sushi after they have just played a game, and not eaten since lunch, be prepared to spend a car payment for it. Just a little, "life experience" warning, here. No extra charge.

By the time I got home, I had a right eye full of, "goo". I'll spare you the details. Let's just say I tried to rinse my eye out a couple of times, and figuring it was allergies this time of year, put some allergy eye drops in it, and that didn't work, so went to bed hoping to be better in the morning. It was not.

Having a busy day, I went to a local, "insta-care", and after a quick admission and check over, I was told I had a case of, "Pink Eye", given a prescription for an eye drop, and sent on my way. Told I would feel better in a couple of days, and this was really common, I should use the drops for a full day after I felt I was better. Elapsed time? 20 Minutes.

Saturday night I attended a back yard party for my friends daughter's graduation from the, "U". It was wonderful. Lot's of old friends, wonderful food. But there was a little wind, and my nose started to run, and I figured, again, allergies, so I left early, went home, took a shower, washed my hair, took my allergy pill, and thought that was that.

Next morning, my eye wasn't working, my nose was plugged, and my chest was so full I could hardly breath. And it was, Mother's Day. So I needed to go shopping to cook dinner, take my wife to visit HER mother, and fill the propane tank to cook steaks for my family and my mother. My propane tank was so old, the, U-Haul on State Street wouldn't fill it. Of course they don't sell tanks, so I had to go find someplace that did on a Sunday morning. Finally got all this done, but it didn't leave any time for a return trip to a doctor.

By Sunday night, post dinner, I'm a mess. Can't see, can't breath, can't sleep.

Monday morning, I go see my regular doctor. My blood pressure is high, she informs me. No shit? Would you like to take this opportunity to tell me why my biggest problem is that even though I quit smoking a pack a day of cigarettes 8 years ago, I still smoke two cigars a week? Or could you actually do something to help me see and breath right now?

She determines that I have, an ear infection. And that it's worked it's way into my nasal passages, and probably my bronchial tubes. She gives me a prescription for antibiotics, wonder's aloud why the guy who gave me the eye drops didn't catch this (good question!) and tells me to keep using my allergy pills, and my eye drops.

I'm now out something like $70 in co-pays in three days, and I'm still sick. I go across the hall to get the med's, and when I pick them up, the pharmacist asks if I have any questions about the, "Z Pack" and I tell her, no, I've done this before.

She says, "You're a little old for an ear infection, aren't you?"

"You think that's bad? Last week, I came down with, Pink Eye".

She says, "Oh my God! Do you work in a Day Care Center?"

This is funny to me, because my first job out of college was at, "The Children's Center" in Kearns. A treatment center for kids with emotional problems. I spent 20 years working in the nations prisons and jails and closed cars with guys who had every imaginable disease. Never got TB, never got, "Pink Eye" or, if I remember correctly, an ear infection.

Now, this whole episode was a damned inconvenience to me. Cost me about $100 out of pocket. And tonight, I'm still not better, but as, "The Bottle Rocket's" would say, "Better than broken, but not as good as new". But now, and for at least another year I have health insurance. The good stuff I was promised if I worked 20 years for the State. And that they took away from me the year I was eligible to retire, and only gave me five years of, because it was too expensive for you taxpayers.

What do you do, if you have this set of circumstances, for you or, more likely, one of your children, and you don't have health insurance? You can't go to, "Insta-care" because you have a busy day. Like you have to, I don't know, WORK! And your job doesn't offer sick leave. Or insurance.

At what point, does the suffering of your child with, "Pink Eye" make you decide to take a day off from work, and take them to the Emergency Room? And what happens if that doesn't work, and you have to do it again in a few days.

The last time I was in the ER, when, Deb hurt her back in, Grenada and I took her in the morning after we got home because I was sure she had a slipped disc, we got there at eight in the morning, and came home at nine at night. And we have insurance.

What happens to your family budget if you have to do this, then have to pay the bills, and lose a day's pay? A day's pay at minimum wage, no less?

And, no, you don't have to be an illegal alien to be in this position. I know kids on my son's soccer team, in relatively, affluent, Murray, that are in the same boat. Hard working, regular folks, who can't afford health insurance.

I guess they could take their kids out of soccer, and baseball, and band, etc. and pay their own way, damn it! But is that the best we can do as a society? Or is that the best we WANT to do? I would hope not.

So, the next time someone tells you that a national health care program is socialism, and that the people of, Canada HATE their health care, and that it would bankrupt us, and that Health Insurance Company's really do have our best interest at heart, I hope that you have the guts to tell them, "Bullshit"! Especially if you don't have any insurance.