Hey, I’ve got a healthcare plan.
It’s called “There’s an ice pack in the freezer” and we’ve been doing it since Ike.
Here’s some more “chune for your head top” (my nephew Kablen told me this would engage millennial readership): I’ve had mesothelioma for 35 years and I’ve never even seen a doctor once on it.
I can hear your questions now: “Buck, how do you even know you have mesothelioma if you’ve never seen a doctor? Buck, do you reckon you might not still have mesothelioma if you just went to the doctor? Buck, will you please sign my chick’s underboob?”
My answer to pretty much all of these bad questions and more is opportunity cost.
That’s right. Opportunity cost. It’s like when you finally get hitched because all your boys are doing it and then you realize you can’t do an open-to-close at Hooters on race day no more because that’s “family time.”
I haven’t gone to the doctor because if I spend friggin’ 45 damn minutes flipping through Chicken Soup for the Non-Binary Soul or whatever the crud is populating waiting room coffee tables these days just so a “medical professional” can tell me what I already know (that I’m up to my eyeballs in mesothelioma), then I’ve cost myself the opportunity to be an online political thought insurgent and the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of the Web’s only publication still dedicated to fighting for The American Way.
Let me tell you what happened last time I sought the medical opinion of a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon:
So, I’m in there, all jiggered up to the treadmill, sweating like I just housed a hot reuben with a side of tzatziki, and Mr. Med School over here tries to tell me that my heart is four times big and that that’s somehow a problem.
- Yeah, it’s big.
- The heart is a muscle. How do you know a muscle is any good? It’s bigger than all hell.
- You expect us to trust your judgment after we’ve all seen your Fiat out in the lot?
By the time I had toweled off and hauled it back to the office, Gawker had me scooped on the Hogan sex tape. Opportunity cost.
Let me tell you a story about The American Way. The protagonist of the story is a man named Frank Roosevelt and he had polio and that’s just true.
Like me, Frank Roosevelt believed that this country was the hottest thing smoking. It was his dream to run the United States of America as Commander-in-Chief, but here was the problem: he couldn’t run because of the polio. I mean, the guy was slow as hell. He was like draft bust Ron Dayne (any Giant fans read this thing?).
A lot of people (like my step-son Beau) would have called the whole thing off, stopped calling his mother, and gotten involved in the cannabis industry — but not Frank. Instead, he did something so brave and just damn savvy that I’m pissed I wasn’t born first to do it instead: he just acted like he didn’t have polio.
I swear to shit that’s true. Ask Burns — you know, the guy with the Harry Potter haircut who does the movies with the zoomed-in photos. Burns did one on Frank and it was actually pretty friggin’ good.
Honest. Frank just said, “To hell with this polio crap, strap my ass to some in-line skates and let’s cruise.” And guess what. He did. And we got Saving Private Ryan out of it.
If this nation ever wants to resurrect the glories of The American Way, it’s gonna have to stop saying “healthcare?” and start saying “who cares?” Otherwise, we’re going to cost ourselves the opportunity to ideate new American businesses. Like, here’s one: nobody does dancers at bachelor parties no more because everyone’s old lady reads their credit card statements, so what if a guy charged the escort ladies to set up shell companies with phony names like “Kid Help, LLC” and “The United Negro College Fund” so the missus thinks you’re generating personal tax write-offs through charitable contributions and not just futzing around with knockers all night.
Pretty good idea, huh? Would a “sick” man come up with that? Didn’t think so.
