Where Have All The Rich Folks Gone?

Had my annual physical yesterday.

I have had so many medical appointments in the last two years, that the hospital issued me personalized, motorized, roller skates and a digital badge. I glide right up to the facility, whizzing right past all the poor people, and flash my badge as I roll right in to the building. No fuss, no muss. As long as I have my mask on.

Had the physical, then a chest x-ray, because I have had all sorts of breathing related shit going on, hanging on, since I got SICK the first week of October.

Sitting, waiting, looking at all the vulnerable people walking in and out and around.

Have you ever noticed at a hospital that all the people, the patients, are broke down, defeated by life and praying to fucking jesus republicans don't cancel social security? 

Poor people. People without resources. They wear ragged, outdated clothes, there is a hopeless look in their eyes, they shuffle in and out with their heads down. They look ten years older than they really are, having been beat down for 60 or 70 years by life.They are scruffy and timid, waiting for the next round of indignities to be imposed by the Medical Industrial Complex.

And they treat medical personnel as if they have some authority, which sickens me.

This is how life works. Those without resources wait in line, get second class service, wait days and weeks for appointments, sit waiting in "waiting rooms" but get bum rushed out. No special requests are allowed.

Those without resources are on an assembly line in life, with no possibility of dignity or respect or consideration. "You will do as you're told, and speak only when spoken to."

As I overloaded on empathy the question suddenly occurred to me - where are all the rich people?

I never see wealthy-looking patients strutting in all self-possessed and condescending, hair perfectly coiffed, dressed in regal clothes. Mixing in with the great unwashed. I don't see Bentleys and Ferraris and Rolls Royces in the parking lot.

Where do these pampered motherfuckers go?

Concierge Medicine. That's what the pampered motherfuckers get - Concierge Medicine.

Look it up; I tried writing about it but it sickened me. Suffice it to say this is some premium shit with some premium benefits. In part, some of it is like going back a hundred years when doctors had real one on one relationships with their patients. In other words, patients treated with respect. As if they are human.

All at a price, of course. Membership fees, monthly membership payments - out of pocket, not covered by insurance.

In the interest of full disclosure, there are affordable plans, but I am quite sure a plan that I can afford is remarkably different than one Bill Gates can afford.

I get angry every time I visit the hospital, or any doctor, really. I feel like another brick in the wall. Registering, answering questions, filling out forms. Repeatedly. Same shit every time.

When I began treatment for prostate cancer, I was given two drugs in pill form to warn my body that crazy shit was about to happen. A one time deal in March of 2021.

To this day, when the assistant is running down the prescription drugs I take, they ask "Are you still taking this and that?" I say over and over and over "That was a one time deal relative to the treatment of prostate cancer." They never delete it.

I have had 477 appointments since March of 2021. They never delete it.

Makes me feel real comfortable about the treatment I am getting.

Rich assholes don't deal with this. They are probably handed flutes of champagne and delicate plates of caviar as soon as they walk in the door.

Medicine is one thing that should be purely democratic. We are talking about health here; your income shouldn't matter. But it does.

Because this is america.

Land of the subordinate, and home of the rich.