Health Care is the New Black

I just got off the phone with my friend Delano, who told me he paid over $500 this month on medical-related expenses. Delano is artistic, and as such, finds it highly irritating to his soul to have to sit in an office, answer telephones, deal with crazy customers, write reports, meet a deadline, get up early, perform manual labor, smooze or kiss ass. As such, he has no health insurance, which was fine until a couple of months ago when he decided it was time for him to stop smoking weed. After a high-free period of three or four days he realized that without his high he couldn't stand life. The high killed the effects of his depression.

He went to the doctor were he was charged $200 for a 30 minute visit during which the doctor basically asked him if he was depressed, to which he applied in the affirmative.

The doctor gave him a physical and sent him for some lab tests. Delano had to pay $170 for blood work.

The blood work came back and showed that he was fine except for a dangerously high cholestorol level.

D's favorite meal is Double-Double cheeseburger, fries and milkshake from In and Out.

The doctor prescribed him Zoloft which set him back $150 for a month's supply of the generic formulary. She also warned him he might just be a Double-Double cheeseburger away from a stroke or heart attack.

His health care cost trauma is not the first I heard about from among my friends. One of my sorors almost died because she thought she had food poisoning and thought she could just "wait it out." Turned out she had appendicitis.

My point is is that this country has a crisis on its hands.

Forget flag burning, forget prayer in schools, forget gay marriage, the US Congress needs to ensure every American has access to affordable health insurance. Although to some the fact that Billy has two mommies is criminal or that invoking the rath of the Old Testament God against one's rivals before a Friday night football game is a natural right, I think we all can agree that for Grandma to pray that the Lord call her home early so that she doesn't get too old and need Long-term care that she cannot afford or for Ms. Sasha the Crazy Lunch Lady to have to choose between getting her schizophrenia medicine or playing Bingo every Saturday night are not choices people should have to make.

Affordable health care, like the color black, will never go out of style.