by Walter Brasch
Clutching newspaper clippings in one hand
and a medical bag loaded with seeds in the other, my ersatz friend Dr. Franklin
Peterson Comstock III, knocking down pregnant ladies, students, the elderly,
and two burly construction workers who were waiting for a bus, rushed past me,
leaving me in a close and personal encounter with the concrete.
“Medical emergency!” Comstock cried out. “Gang
way!”
“You’ve returned to medicine?” I shouted
after him.
“I’m going into un-medicine!” he shouted back. “I’m getting the big bucks not to
operate!” This was a story too good to let by, so I gave up any hope of the
7:11 “D”-line bus arriving by 7:30, and chased after him.
“Slow down!” I panted. “You’ll kill yourself!”
“No time to slow down,” he said, leaving a
trail of broken bodies. “There’s money to be had!”
“If you kill yourself before you get to the
hospital, you’ll never see a cent from the insurance company.” That stopped
him, giving me time to catch up and catch my breath.
“I’m not operating,” said Comstock.
“If you’re not operating, what’s the
medical bag?”
“That’s so I can get money from the
Department of Agriculture,” he replied. I’m planting lots of stuff on lots of non-productive
acres, and I’m waiting for the market to drop.”
“You want
the market to drop?” I asked suspiciously.
“That way I can take advantage of crop
insurance. Here! Read!”
A newspaper clipping revealed that Congress
approved $90 billion over the next decade to assist farmers whose crops didn’t
yield previous production quotas. It was a sleight-of-hand change from a
program that gave farmers subsidies not to grow certain crops. However, in this
case, the crop insurance program primarily benefitted large corporate
agribusiness industry. About 10,000 corporations are receiving more than
$100,000 each, with some receiving over $1 million, according to the
Environmental Working Group. Local farmers, however, are receiving less than
$5,000 a year, and mostly when their crops are wiped out by floods. Also in the
budget is more than $1 billion to insurance companies for “administrative”
expenses.
“When the public finds out which
corporations are getting all this tax-funded bonuses, they’ll be outraged!” I
said.
“That’s the juicy part,” said Comstock.
“Congress slipped in a non-disclosure clause in the bill, and who gets the
bucks is secret.”
“So, you’re entire income will be from not
being a successful farmer?” I said, outraged.
“Absolutely not! I’m not putting all my
eggs in one basket. I’m also going to get money for not operating.”
“You mean, like the farmers got for not
planting crops?”
“Exactly. And you can thank a congressman
for this brilliant stroke of fortune.” With that, he handed me another
newspaper article. In this article, Rep. Mike Kennedy, a Republican from Utah,
in opposition to Obamacare, said, “Access to health care can be damaging and
dangerous.” Elaborating, he claimed that as many as 1.5 million people die in
hospitals, “and it’s access to hospitals that’s killing these people.”
“That’s even dumber than subsidizing
corporate farmers,” I said.
“Not dumb. Just helping the medical
profession earn a reasonably high six-figure wage. Even if we get them through
surgery, they’ll die in the hospitals anyhow! Isn’t that wonderful!” Wonderful wasn’t exactly the word I had
in mind.
“Doctors are supposed to make people
healthier,” I brazenly said.
“I guess we can do that while we’re making
money,” said Comstock, thoughtfully stringing out his scheme. “In the old days,
we surgeons knew there was more money to be made in surgery than in pushing
pills, so we rushed everyone into X-Ray, MRI, and CT scans—got a nice chunk of
kick-back change for that—then into surgery, and finally into the recovery ward
where they sometimes actually recovered.” He paused a moment, grinning. “But,
that congressman thinks access to hospitals is dangerous, so that means fewer
patients. Fewer patients means we need to have subsidies. Just like the
farmers.”
“You’re going to demand Congress, which has
already wasted millions of dollars and tried more than 50 times to wipe out
Obamacare, pay doctors for not having enough patients?”
“Doctors deserve no less than the MBAs
running corporate farms,” he patriotically declared.
“Most doctors aren’t as greedy as you,” I
explained.
“Most doctors aren’t as rich as me either,”
he retorted. “Besides, it makes no difference. I’m sure the AMA would be
thrilled I’m not doing surgery.” I had to agree with him, but I had another
question.
“What happened to your franchised Doc’s Gas
self-service stations? I thought you became a multi-millionaire because of
that.”
“Lost a ton of money. It’s all Obama’s
fault.”
I knew Comstock blamed the President for
everything wrong in the country—and a few things that were just made up by Fox
News commentators who had too much air time and not enough time to do any fact
checking. “How is it President Obama’s fault?” I asked.
“Gas prices plummeted this year,” said
Comstock. “Cost me a lot of money. But that Black socialist Muslim Kenyan dictator
refuses to give me a subsidy for having too much gas in my system.”
Yes,” I said sarcastically, “that does seem
to be a problem. But, at least you’ll be getting tax-dollars for running an
unproductive farm and may get money for not operating.”
“Not enough,” said Comstock. “It’s always
not enough.”
And, with that, I thought I had enough, and
ran after the 7:11 D-line bus, which, on time, showed up at 7:32.
[Walter
Brasch, an award-winning social issues columnist and satirist, is the author of
20 books. His latest book is Fracking
Pennsylvania, an in-depth investigation of the health, economic, and environmental
effects of fracking throughout the country.]
