Yours for a healthy America,
Rhoda Manning
March 19, 1994
Dear Blue Cross, Blue Shield,
I had a long talk with my ninety-year-old neighbor, Kassie Martin, yesterday. She praised me for letting my insurance run out. She said that if I have a stroke or a heart attack it is best to arrive at the hospital uninsured as that might lower the chances of them putting you on a life support machine. She has seen many unpleasant things happen to older people who arrive at the hospital fully insured. Greed is nothing new in the world but why should we be victims of it?
On another note I have only had one prescription filled since I left you. I drove around town doing some comparison shopping. That pharmacy that used to fill my prescriptions is twice as high as the one at Wal-Mart. You should look into this.
Yours in spring,
Rhoda Manning
March 21, 1994
Dear Blue Cross, Blue Shield,
Well, it looks like John Alden Jali-Care is going to come through with a cheap policy for me. Their representative called this morning to say all they needed now were some copies of my books with pages marked showing them where I used the information I got in psychotherapy to help my writing.
It’s difficult to believe that health care professionals could be that unlettered and that dumb, isn’t it? Now that I have gotten accustomed to being uninsured and dependent on myself it is going to be hard for me to pay anyone anything for health insurance. I’ll let you know what I decide.
Stay well,
Rhoda Manning
March 26, 1994
Dear Blue Cross, Blue Shield,
I can’t bring myself to take John Alden up on their offer. Why would I want to do business with people who are dumber than I am?
Instead, I have decided to go to Italy. A hotel near the Ponte Vecchio. I don’t know where that is yet, but I will soon. A young man of my acquaintance who speaks perfect French and Italian is going with me. We are going to stay at a hotel in Rome where Sartre and Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Naguchi and lots of other artists stayed. If I get sick in Italy, who cares? What could I have that Italian pasta and Italian men couldn’t cure? We are going to Rome for twelve days and then to Florence for seven.
Arrivederci,
Rhoda Manning
April 10, 1994
Dear Blue Cross, Blue Shield,
Well, here we are in Florence after a heavenly time in Rome. The sun is shining and the world seems “to lie before us like a field of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new.” We arrived yesterday morning and walked around for a while. Then we slept awhile and ate dinner in a piazza. Tomorrow we will go to see the Uffizi Gallery. There are paintings there by Botticelli, Titian, and Raphael, to name a few. I’ll probably faint, but don’t worry, it won’t cost you any money.
It’s pretty amazing to step off an airplane and be in Italy. Thanks so much for making this possible by raising my rates so much that I couldn’t keep my insurance.
I picked up a paper as I was leaving Fayetteville and noticed that you had made a deal with State Farm to keep everyone’s group policies in effect another year with only a twenty percent increase. I started to call my insurance agent and see if I could get in on that, but then I decided to hell with it. Why should I pay you three thousand dollars a year? That’s ten more nights in first-class hotels in Tuscany. Well, stay well. This is the last letter I am going to write to you. I’m going to see paintings, eat Italian food, then rent a sports car and drive up to the mountains to go skiing. My young lover and I have a motto. We’ll take today. I know we aren’t the first to think of that but it still works.
Arrivederci,
Rhoda
Also by Ellen Gilchrist
The Age of Miracles
The Anabasis
The Anna Papers
The Annunciation
The Cabal and Other Stories
The Courts of Love
Drunk With Love
Falling Through Space
Flights of Angels
I Cannot Get You Close Enough
In the Land of Dreamy Dreams
Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle
Net of Jewels
Rhoda: A Life in Stories
Sarah Conley
Starcarbon
Victory Over Japan
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