Obama Care

by Jason Scimitar

8

  Marcy Adams had breast cancer. She had received several minor surgeries. They hadn’t stopped her cancer process. Her tumors seemed hungry for her personal human food stuffs. They metastasized like hungry ants scratching around for left over meat. They poked their horrid little beaks into all parts of her limpid system and tore away her life.

  All the while she was seeing doctors, Marcy and her husband Ralph Adams were told that there were hundreds of treatments that could be used, but for one excuse or another the government’s Obama Care program would not approve them.

  “You mean we have this great national affordable health care system that we are paying hundreds of dollars for each month, but their gate keepers won’t approve Marcy’s cancer treatment?” Ralph asked the cancer specialist.

  “Yes, but it’s not the government’s fault. The insurance companies never approve cancer treatments for patients as advanced as Marcy’s, even if there’s a tiny chance they might work.”

  “Why is that?” Marcy asked. She squeezed Ralph’s hand. She couldn’t believe she was being denied any and all treatments for the disease that was ravishing her life. For a full year, the cancer had sucked all of her energies away. It had induced horrific pain. Now, the cancer was lodging itself inside many of her organs.

  “They say that there’s not enough money,” Dr. Samuel Worthington told the Adams. “In addition, the insurance companies are guaranteed a hefty little profit for your care, but only if they follow these limited guidelines.”

  “I see,” March said. “So we are being cheated.”

  “Cheated?” Dr. Samuel Worthington asked. “No, you are not being cheated at all. It’s just the way things are. You are being treated exactly as everyone else in America is being treated. It’s right here in our treatment guides that everyone is treated exactly the same. It is your right as a patient to receive only the approved treatments. These policies have always been subject to changes.”

  “But they won’t approve any treatments. We want to know why not?”

  Dr. Samuel Worthington looked at her with a great deal of sympathy. “I know it seems cruel, but the system has found that people with your stage of this illness cannot be helped except in the most rare cases. The possibility of a positive outcome would be less than one percent. That’s not enough to warrant the expense for either the insurance carrier or the government. I would personally like to give you that treatment, because I could profit from it. However, it’s out of the question. My hands are tied by the rules of Obama Care.”

  “My wife wants to live, Dr. Worthington, and there are still treatments that could save her. We want you to give them to her,” Mr. and Mrs. Adams protested. “Everyone else gets them.”

  “No, they don’t. Ever since Obama Care, the old treatments have been stopped, because they are so generally ineffective,” Dr. Worthington explained. He wondered why it was so difficult to get people to understand these things. “We can’t go against the guidelines, because, in the past, these other methods didn’t statistically work out well. We can only provide treatments that have a reasonable expectation of saving people including Marcy. At this stage, nothing much helps, so the costs of such procedures are wasted in her case.”

  “Our neighbor had treatments right up to the end,” Ralph Adams said.

  “Yes, but that was before Obama Care. And your neighbor probably died anyway. Now, the procedures are limited. Marcy is still being cared for, but her condition is considered hopeless at this point. And I agree. It is quite hopeless.”

  The Adams got up and left.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Ralph said.

  “I wanted to be treated.”

  “If it’s any consolation, Marcy, I’ll kill these bastards. I promise you that.”

  “But I’ll be dead, Ralph. So, it won’t do me any good.”

  Ralph kissed her.

  “Without you, I don’t want to live, anyway,” Ralph said. “But believe me. I’ll take care of business later, because if you die I’ll shoot the bastards.”