Of course what you really are paying for under these high-deductible plans is coverage for the day when the big "C" or something like it, gets it's teeth into you. Without catastrophic coverage you end up in the hospital with doctors pumping you full of stuff that costs so much it chews through a lifetime of savings in three days then goes to work on your house, cars and jewelry. (All that platinum plated healthcare is still only likely to keep you alive long enough to drag your now hairless, emaciated and totally broke self to the nearest bankruptcy court.)
Then came the prescription meds shock. When I found out how much the two meds I take cost I almost fell off the butcher-paper covered exam table. But then I was advised that there was an alternative -- Wal-Mart, the Borg of American retailing. Wal-Mart would provide my generic prescription drugs for just four bucks for a 30-day supply!
And so here I am, after a lifetime of skipping around the edges of society, all at once -- assimilated. Just like that. Now I can "look forward" to being promoted in three years to the Borg of American Social Programs, MediCare/Social Security and AARP, which has been on my tail since I turned 50, and is gaining on me.
Let me tell ya, its all come as quite a shock to this old Haight-Ashbury hippie. It's like totally un-groovy. Nevertheless, here I am, assigned my very own recharging station at the local Kaiser cube, and schlepping around Wal-Mart in search of cheap drugs that don't even make me "happy," when they're taken as directed.
And what are you smiling about? They're gonna get you too, eventually. It's all a matter of scale. As more and more people occupy finite earth-space, and consume more and more finite resources, the only way all of them can get a piece of the action is through maximization of efficiencies of scale. Eventually the US will go with a single Borg-ish insurance system, because nothing else works, as we are already seeing.
We are about to all be living in a world that bears a striking similarity to the old science fiction movies we used to watch as kids, you know where everyone dresses alike and says things like, "It's another beautiful day in the village."
It's not as much Big Brother as it is Big Borg. Big Brother just controlled what people said, saw, heard, and knew. The Borg cuts out the middle man and simply assimilates.
It's not the kind of world I chose on my own. Instead it's like climate change. It's too late to avoid it. Now we have to learn to adjust to conditions beyond our control. Most of what's about to happen is already baked into the cake. I wish it were otherwise, but it is what is.
Sometimes we can change events and sometimes events change us.
And so it has come to pass - my assimilation has begun. Resistance is futile. My goal now has become to be the most annoying, under-achieving, obnoxious, passive-aggressive little sh*t the Borg ever assimilated. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll spit me back out.
Then came the prescription meds shock. When I found out how much the two meds I take cost I almost fell off the butcher-paper covered exam table. But then I was advised that there was an alternative -- Wal-Mart, the Borg of American retailing. Wal-Mart would provide my generic prescription drugs for just four bucks for a 30-day supply!
And so here I am, after a lifetime of skipping around the edges of society, all at once -- assimilated. Just like that. Now I can "look forward" to being promoted in three years to the Borg of American Social Programs, MediCare/Social Security and AARP, which has been on my tail since I turned 50, and is gaining on me.
Let me tell ya, its all come as quite a shock to this old Haight-Ashbury hippie. It's like totally un-groovy. Nevertheless, here I am, assigned my very own recharging station at the local Kaiser cube, and schlepping around Wal-Mart in search of cheap drugs that don't even make me "happy," when they're taken as directed.
We are about to all be living in a world that bears a striking similarity to the old science fiction movies we used to watch as kids, you know where everyone dresses alike and says things like, "It's another beautiful day in the village."
It's not as much Big Brother as it is Big Borg. Big Brother just controlled what people said, saw, heard, and knew. The Borg cuts out the middle man and simply assimilates.
It's not the kind of world I chose on my own. Instead it's like climate change. It's too late to avoid it. Now we have to learn to adjust to conditions beyond our control. Most of what's about to happen is already baked into the cake. I wish it were otherwise, but it is what is.
Sometimes we can change events and sometimes events change us.
And so it has come to pass - my assimilation has begun. Resistance is futile. My goal now has become to be the most annoying, under-achieving, obnoxious, passive-aggressive little sh*t the Borg ever assimilated. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll spit me back out.
In the meantime here's where I draw a red line in the sand: they'll have to pry my nightly snort of brandy out of my cold, dead fingers.
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