An Addendum to My Last Post

I have hesitated to use this story because it is so sad, but decided it was necessary; if we have universal "health care" forced on us, this story is going to be repeated over and over. Here is my new reason why universal "health care" as Dr. Pelosi wants it will not work:

Government-controlled health care takes away the last remnants of humanity and courtesy.

I don't know how much of a syndicated AP news feed I can cut and paste in one blog, so let me summarize most of it. Scott Hawkins was a student at California State University in Sacramento. For reasons unknown and unexplained, it appears he was beaten to death by his roomate. He was taken to the UC Davis medical center where he was pronounced dead five minutes after arrival. This perhaps implies that he was already dead when he arrived. Do hospitals get to charge when a dead person shows up? I'm not sure. But I certainly know they can charge for a live one. Officially, Mr. Hawkins was "alive" for five minutes there. How much did the "care" they gave him cost? Only $29,000. No more. Twenty-nine-thousand dollars, about five thousand a minute, to do what Dr. McCoy did for free: "He's dead, Jim."

Now let's add insult to injury. You fill in the gaps for the next few minutes. A call to shocked parents who thought their son was safe in his dorm room. Now he's dead. We can all imagine what the loss of a son would be like: the questions, the grieving, the feelings that follow.

What they didn't expect was a bill. A bill from the UC Davis medical center telling them that they could do nothing more for their son because he was "maxed out," and that those parents owed them over 29,000 dollars. The bill also said that they were "indigent," not paying what they owed. The grieving parents called the hospital billing department to clear things up. They were too grief stricken to talk, actually, but amidst all the sobbing, finally got the message across.

Was there an apology from the hospital? I will let you be the judge (here is the direct quote from the AP wire):

A spokeswoman for the hospital says the bill was a mistake - it should have gone to an insurance company.

There you have it. Hey, it was all a mistake. We were going to stick it to the insurance company. Five thousand dollars a minute attending to a person who may have already been dead. But it's okay. We were going to raid someone's insurance plan for this. Sorry we sent it to a real human. We meant for it to go to accounting. By the way, do you have their address?

Some day, in Nancy Pelosi's dream world, we will all have "insurance." Then, doctors won't have to be civil with anyone. We won't discuss the condition of the patient. We will bill him "minutes" like lawyers currently bill "hours." All the money, after all, comes from the limitless, gigantic pool of wealth that the "government" must have somewhere. Oh, there will be paperwork, but that creates "jobs."

To Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, the grieving parents, I can only say how sorry I am for the loss of your son. I wonder if any "health care providers" offered condolences. Doctors used to do that, you know. Back when you wrote them a check for their services, or gave them cash before they left your house. Back when health care meant a doctor you knew in a building you recognized that existed in your town. People used to live a long time back then, too; one doctor could treat a patient, and cure him. But medicine is a big business now. Everybody needs a network. And when the government gets into it, it will be bigger. Broke, but bigger. Just like the Post Office. And Amtrak. And the Social Security Adminstration.

You'd think that someone could add at least one rider to the omnibus "health care" bill that is being debated now. Maybe add a buck fifty per case for a Hallmark card. After all, they could stick it to the insurance company for, maybe thirty bucks. Fifty if someone signed it.

Why "Universal Health Care" Won't Work

We're hearing a lot of inflamed rhetoric about health care right now. Some people are talking about "death panels," while others are talking about people dying because they can't afford health insurance. There's enough political strife to go around without me adding to it, and I know I've said several things about health care in the past few years, but maybe I can clarify my thoughts a little more with one statement:

The best thing we could do to improve health care in this country right now would be to cancel our insurance.

I know it's radical, but probably necessary. I know it won't happen, but it should. The very worst thing we can do right now is increase the amount of insurance available, or guarantee everyone health insurance. How do I dare make such a statement?

• Health insurance raises health care costs. One friend of mine remembers going to the hospital emergency room with a broken leg. After the doctor had set the leg and put the cast on it, they were being checked out. The doctor was in the background as his secretary got the bill ready. "Who is your insurance provider?" she asked. His father told her they had no insurance and were going to pay in cash. Immediately, the doctor turned around and told her to rewrite the bill, that it was too high for someone paying out of his pocket. Do I really need to say more? I can. I once had a policy that paid up to $200 for emergency room fees. One night we had to take our son to the emergency room. I saw the sign -- in English and Spanish -- that stated that the Emergency Room fee was $200. I was thankful that it was covered. When I received the bill (seven months later, but that's another story), I noted that our insurance had paid $200 of the $450 that we were actually billed. I was left owing fifty dollars more for the emergency room than I would have owed if I had not had insurance. I now refuse to give any insurance information out until the bill is presented. A doctor's visit in our local town has dropped from the $75 they charge for usual "covered" visits to the $60 I pay by saying I have no insurance. What will happen if we all get insurance, and more coverage? I think you know.


• Health insurance encourages corruption. Have you ever been "double-billed?" I have, and I don't think I'm unique. There are two ways to "double bill." One is merely to bill a large insurance company twice. Private insurance companies are a little greedier, and will try not to pay the extra, but they often miss it; on the other hand, government agencies run on the "there's always more where that came from" philosophy, and seldom check the double billing. It is a routine practice to bill Medicare and Medicaid a horrendous amount, and then some. For some reason, Uncle Sam does not mind paying 50 bucks for a Tylenol. He may think it's a bargain after paying 600 dollars for a hammer. There is, however, another way to "double bill." At a time when I had great medical coverage in the 80's, before the horrible inflation of medical prices, our son was born at a local hospital. We turned in our insurance info, and a day later, took home our new son. A month later, I was presented with a full bill from the hospital for the entire process, due upon receipt. I immediately called our insurance company, thinking they hadn't paid, and they offered to mail me all the records of payment. Two days later, I presented these records to the hospital, and their response was, "we will clear the bill." They had billed the the full amount after the insurance company had paid them. There was no remorse, no apology. I got the impression it was just business as usual.


• The "airline syndrome." Once, flying on an airplane was like taking a luxury cruise. Of course, it cost what a luxury cruise costs as well. There were DC-3's that had been equipped with "sleeping berths," and well-to-do travelers could retire for bed after takeoff in New York and wake up to a bright morning in Los Angeles. As airlines sought to get more passengers, seats were moved closer together, costs were cut, and today riding on a commerical flight is not unlike boarding a cattle car to go to the slaughter house. Health care for all increases the work load of clinics and hospitals. When we are paying for health care, we are looking for bargains, and we debate whether we really need to go to the doctor to stitch a wound or just to bandage it and let it heal naturally. When we have paid the "big bucks" for our health insurance, we see it as our "right" to go to the emergency room for a hangnail or a sore throat. Cost is not a factor. Insurance has made the "private room" the standard for all Americans. We are overcrowding the hospitals and clinics in our communities. Add to this that the big money from government-funded health care has led to more government regulations, and hospitals and clinics that don't "measure up" have had to close. A generation ago, every town of 1000 or more -- and some with less -- had at least a local clinic and a family doctor. Now, there are cities of 25,000 and more who are losing their health care facilities. Specialization, created by government regulations, has depleted the capacity of the local clinic to treat all illnesses, and most people who visit a small hospital in a semi-rural town will end up in a metropolitan medical center at some time. Universal health care means more government requisites and regulations, and with it, the loss of more hospitals. Our emergency rooms are overcrowded and understaffed now, and it will only get worse.


• I speak with the experience of someone who has lived in two countries with "universal health care." I have sat up all night with someone who was waiting to be attended. I have watched the long, wearying search for his documents, and I have seen the increasing pain as he waited through the night for his "number." I have sat in an emergency room -- not the waiting room but the actual emergency room -- and watched someone die on the gurney while waiting for a doctor. I saw the doctor arrive later and inject something into the dead man's heart because it had already been prescribed. He had to remove the sheet from the man to do this, and then he replaced it immediately afterward. But he did get paid for the administration of the medicine. In those countries, I, as an American, had access to more money than the locals. When my family needed attention, I could go down the street to a private clinic and pay the higher costs. I got immediate attention and quality service. Why? Because in that country I was rich. Universal health care does the same in all countries: it marginalizes the poor, and insulates the rich. I find it ironic that so many people want to have health insurance "to help the poor." Nothing hurts them more.

If we really want to improve the quality of health care in our country, the last thing we need to do is throw money at the system. Health care needs to be put into the realm of supply and demand. Local clinics need to be opened.

If the government really wants to help, we should use government funds to restore medical care centers to the communities in our country who have lost them due to federal regulation and medical specialization. We should offer incentives to those who study to be general practitioners, and give aid to restore OB/Gyn work to local communities. It is not uncommon for a woman in labor to have to suffer an hour or longer drive now to deliver a baby. If the government wants to help, health care funds should be given to develop more hospitals and train more doctors.

Medical firms and pharmaceutical companies should be freed to do more of their own research and development without the oppressive paperwork. If Pasteur had worked in this country in the 21st century, we would have never had any of the advances in medicine that he gave us. The ones he actually achieved would still be tied up in testing and waiting approval by some government bureaucracy.

If we really want to improve the quality of health care, hospitals and medical billing should be "called to account." If the federal government needs something to "regulate," try hospital billing. How ironic that we have to walk past so much new construction to enter a hospital that tells us how "broke" they are.

• Hospitals should be responsible for in-house billing, and it should be immediate. Customers should be advised up front of billing practices.
• Billing should be unified and itemized. No patient should ever be billed by a doctor they don't know from a city they've never visited, but it happens every day.
• Bills should be sent to patients before they are sent to insurance companies, and insurance companies should work with their customers before any money is paid to medical institutions or practitioners.
• No bill should be valid that is issued for the first time over a month after treatment. In other words, hospitals should be held to the same rules of accounting, honesty, and forthrightness that the businesses on main street observe.

It should be possible for anyone to pay a medical bill without being bereft of years of hard-earned money. Insurance was introduced as a luxury and a favor to those who wished to use it. It was never intended to be a "cover all" for all health care. That's why the best radical treatment for our "health care crisis" would be for all Americans to cancel their insurance policies tomorrow -- or today. The prices would float to fair market value, and an aspirin tablet would not cost 30 dollars.

I know it's a crazy idea. I admit it's crazy and reckless. But it's a better idea than I'm hearing from Washington right now. Attempting to remedy the health care crisis by throwing more money at it is like attempting to cure a cold by blowing your nose.

A New View from the Inside

Every time I hear any of the entitled ones, whether they be Republican or Democrat, talk about "Health Care," the only thing their little narrow minds can envision is "insurance." I wish it was that easy. I wish that the health care solution could be one of two things:

1. The really easy fix: All of our health care problems are being caused by evil, profit-mongering insurance companies. The federal government could force them to offer us all health insurance for fifty dollars a month, and cover it 100%, and we would all be healthy and happy.
2. The "throw money at it" fix: We need to replace greedy, capitalistic health insurance companies with a benevolent, government controlled socialistic "one size fits all" health insurance program, taking a meager amount from our earned income and paying hospitals to keep us healthy and happy.

Obviously, both of the above scenarios are fairy tales. I do not deny that insurance companies will try to find ways to keep from paying any money they don't have to, sometimes unjustly. What I do deny is that they have played a main role in the crisis that is ongoing now. I am trying my best to avoid merely repeating some of my earlier rants on this blog site. Let me try to state some things in a new way. In this past week, I have been "on the inside." A person close to our family has had a hospital experience. I have just a few observations to make.

• It takes at least 15,000 dollars to ride a helicopter from one hospital to another. I think I found a way to pay my own medical expenses. First, I need a helicopter so I can make 14,500 dollars profit on each ride. If I furnish as few as two rides a day, I can pay maybe half my daily hospital expenses for just what I'm charging for the helicopter ride.
• Doctors no longer understand the entire body. I think there are doctors that treat only the left ear, and others only the right. Some treat veins while others treat arteries. And none of them know how to read an x-ray. They have to hire that out.
• Hospitals are constantly under construction. I guess they have to find some way to "tax shelter" the money they charge. All hospitals are under construction.
• Only doctors and employees can park within five blocks of a hospital. Everyone else has to park further away, and has to pay for the privilege.
• Half of the "emergency room" parking is "handicapped only." What say we make an allowance here, and speculate on the fact that perhaps everybody that needs an emergency room is at least temporarily "handicapped." Maybe someone didn't get a chance to apply for a handicapped plate between the time he got the knife in his back and the time he arrived at the hospital. Maybe we could forego the restrictions and signs.
• Hospitals like mazes. There are no straight lines in hospitals. If they have letters before the portion of the hospital, they will not necessarily mean anything and will never be in alphabetical order. "A" wing will never be next to "B" wing.
• Oh, and parking places are like gangland turf wars. Instead of "crips" and "bloods," etc, hospital parking lots are the turf of "radiology" or "enterology" or "cardiology" parking only. If your kidney just blew up, sorry about that. Find the renal lot. This one belongs to the heart people. If you see a sign that says "doctor parking," you are too close to the hospital anyway.

Sunday night, I had driven 120 miles to catch up with the helicopter, and as we waited for only six hours to get someone a room, I looked in that emergency ward. Everywhere I looked, there were people on cell phones, and one big word I kept hearing was "insurance." A bigger one, though, was "medicaid." I heard snippets as I walked by, of people saying, "I don't know how we will pay for this." Recently, one of my own friends talked about when his mother came out of her coma in a trauma ward, and her first words were, "How will we ever pay for this?" I can't recall anyone in the eavesdropped conversations talking about the health condition of a friend or loved one. It was all about spending the rest of their lives trying to figure out how to pay everything.

This morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," Michelle Katz, author of at least two books I plan to buy, spoke of how, after the trauma of saving her husband from a fatal heart attack, she then had the harder job of getting a correct hospital bill. She and her husband were overcharged thousands of dollars for the stay. Several months ago, Mellody Hobson, also on "GMA," said that up to 70 percent of all medical bills are in error. That was kind of her, because merely "in error" would have meant that some patients were under-charged, which never actually happens.

If the medical world were held accountable like I, a private citizen, am held accountable, we might be able to solve many of these problems. Yet medical institutions are not held to these rules, and we are bombarded by these bank breakers:

• Bills sometimes come 6 months to a year after the fact. I have thought at times that I was totally paid, and then, long after the account was settled, had it re-opened by a late but substantial billing entry.
• Billing is not uniform. I have found that it is better not to mention at all that I have insurance. A few years ago, I had to take my son to the emergency room. The sign said in English and Spanish, both of which I read, "Emergency room expense is 200 dollars." That was good for me because my policy at that time paid up to 200 dollars for the emergency room. Imagine my surprise when, six months later, I got the bill from the hospital for 250 dollars. They had billed my insurance company 450 dollars for the 200 dollar emergency room, the insurance company had paid its 200, and I was left owing 250. If I had just denied having any insurance, I could have saved fifty bucks.
• Billing is not unified. Even a CPA could not keep up with billing. There is the doctor's bill, the hospital's bill, the ER bill, the specialist bill, the radiology bill, and then the bill for someone who, 200 miles away, at 4 AM, allegedly read the xray and did something worth 600 dollars. Then there are incidental bills for medicine, meals, kleenex (at 12 dollars a box), etc. Your hospital and any of the others above will be more than happy to forego the inconvenience of an itemized bill for these things. In addition to the insurance and payment nightmare this poses, it also allows for double billing, even triple billing of the same treatments.
• The burden of proof is on you. Not only that; if you take the time and effort to straighten out the bill, the hospital usually says, "Okay, you got me. Pay the rest." On one of our bills, the hospital billed our insurance company, got an offset of the bill (about half) and then, three months later, billed us for the full amount. When we called to ask them about it, they said it was the full amount that we owed. After another month that included getting a statement of payment from our insurance company, the hospital, without comment, apology, or admission of error (actually theft), merely sent us a new bill showing about a two thousand dollar "adjustment" with no explanation.

It is a frightening dichotomy. On the one hand, we have the best doctors, not only in the world, but in history, living in the US right now. We have miracles of medicine that extend and save lives, and diagnostic equipment that my grandparents only dreamed of. On the other hand, the medical world is a world of uncertainty, humiliation, financial disaster, and interminable waiting in lines, of mountains of repetitive paperwork. As we waited to admit our friend the other night, I was amazed at how many times differing departments asked her the same questions regarding address, phone, medical history, insurance numbers, contact numbers, etc. It seems that all that information, once in a computer, could be readily available for all. My wife and I had updated our contact information on one floor of that huge hospital, but that updated info did not make it to the destination floor, where they tried to contact us at an outdated number.

One key I see is the huge, bottomless pit of money and resources that can be drawn from the federal government. If tomorrow, all medicaid and medicare was shut off, hospitals would go broke all across the country. Add 100% group plans that very few people get, and we'd lose them all. When the idea of a general practitioner was abundant and every village of 500 or more in the US had a clinic and doctor, it was possible to pay a medical bill without mortgaging the rest of your life away. It was also possible to park within 100 feet of your doctor's office. When the local MD knew you, shopped, dined, and worshiped where you did, there was an ambience of friendship, of relationship, that precluded the idea of "malpractice," either the "doing or the suing."

If there were any way to turn back the clock to these times, to eliminate the monstruous medical complexes in favor of the local clinic and hospital, to allow a doctor to deliver a baby without fears of being sued every time, we might be able to pay our own way. But now, if you have something worse than a hangnail, you have to be referred to the nearest city of 200,000 or more to get it taken care of. Local G.P.'s can't -- or won't -- be bothered with it.

The worst possible thing we can do about this crisis is further nationalize and regulate it. We don't need government-provided health insurance. The most radical, but probably the most effective remedy would be for every American to cancel his or her health insurance tomorrow, to tear up every medicare and medicaid card, and let the medical industry free-float to a market value it deserves. Oh, and of course, put a strict limit on lawsuits and liability, so a doctor can insure himself for less than six figures a month.

But of course that's not going to happen. So when you get sick, be sure to bring lots of pens and paper for the paperwork, prepare to walk several miles, and say goodbye to all your money, even if you have insurance. Because health care needs fixing, and it's not going to happen if we keep treating the symptoms. Doctors used to know that.

Best Wishes, Ted Kennedy

I begin this with a sincere wish that Senator Kennedy recovers from the surgery to remove his brain tumor. I disagree with him politically on nearly everything we could discuss, but that doesn't mean I want him to go through such a horrible medical condition. May his recovery be speedy, and may the surgery prove totally successful. In the real world, cancer is a bigger enemy to me than any liberal politician, even the most liberal.

I'm glad he was able to get the excellent medical treatment that he got. I wish you, the reader, could get it too. Unfortunately, there is a great gap between you and Mr. Kennedy. He will not see even a small dent in his rather substantial bank account, because, you see, he has an excellent health care policy. Only the best hospitals for him. The health insurance policy that covers his medical expenses was paid for by you and me. He's over ten years past medicare eligibility, but he won't need it. He's got you paying his health care costs.

Supposedly, he and Hillary both want to give you the same excellent coverage. Let me warn you that, even with good intentions, neither of them can deliver. If Hillary's health care is made a reality (and Obama will probably let her have a free hand if he is elected), we won't get anything like Ted Kennedy's coverage.

We won't get to select the finest hospital, first. Our place of medical care will be limited to whatever the government has decided it will be. Secondly, we should not expect the speed and efficiency that Mr. Kennedy has been blessed with. Under Hillary's health care, your tumor in your head might get attention in three or four months, and then, at some local center that Uncle Sam has chosen for you.

One reason that our elected officials are so far removed from anything realistic regarding health care is because they have been shielded all their congressional lives from the daily horror of medical costs and red tape. If 535 men and women in our capitol building were suddenly given the same options that we have, they might be drawing up totally different bills from the ones they are suggesting now.

I'll venture that Mr. Kennedy would not have gotten nearly as good treatment with nearly as good a prognosis as he got this morning, if he were blessed with the health care proposals on the table by Mr. Obama and Ms. Rodham/Clinton. Mr. Kennedy might be in a bind right now.

But what they're proposing will be good enough for you. The waiting, the paperwork, the underfunding, the substandard treatments, all of that is okay for you.

I am amazed that I cannot find a congress-person, on either side of the aisle, who knows that Health Care and Insurance are two different worlds. Mr. McCain has the same problem. I live in the real world, and realize that the reason insurance rates are so high and cover so little is because hospitalization and medical costs are astronomical and unrealistic.

The only answer to reforming health care is not using public money and higher taxes to pay for insurance for everyone. That will only drive medical costs higher, and close more small hospitals, and crowd more emergency rooms, delay time for medical treatment, and bankrupt more families, who must exchange financial security for a couple more years of life.

What we need is a congressional group who is willing -- and courageous -- enough to find out why:

• Why does it cost more per day to stay in a rural hospital room than it does to get an exterior cabin on a luxury cruise ship?
• Why does a box of kleenexes in a hospital room cost 75 dollars?
• Why does any type of surgery cost more than the average American makes in six months, and crucial surgeries cost more than the average American makes in three years?
• Why are over 80% of all medical bills in error, almost always in favor of the medical institution?
• Why is it common policy for medical institutions to bill both the patient and the insurance company, and if they collect from both, not have the obligation to notify either of the double billing?
• Why are hospitals constantly losing money, yet we usually have to walk around new construction to get to the wings where we visit our loved ones?

I could name others, but that's a start. I think one reason is, most of the 535 elected officials in the Capitol building do not even know that these things are happening. They have a cover-all comprehensive medical policy -- funded by you -- that takes care of itself. It is a bottomless, limitless source of money that can easily pay for a 12 dollar tylenol tablet or a six dollar bar of dial soap.

When you multiply a policy like that by 535, and look at the base of say, 100 million taxpayers, it works. But when you multiply that coverage by 300 million Americans, and keep the same base of people who actually pay taxes, the math breaks down. There is no way it can work.

I'm glad Senator Kennedy received the best of medical treatment. I am equally glad that his outlook is good. He may outlive me; one, because the press says he is a 'real fighter,' and also, because if I get a brain tumor I won't be able to afford what he got for free that I helped pay for.

I have a crazy idea that I know will never happen, but it would work. If every American would cancel all health insurance tomorrow, hospital and medical prices would grudgingly have to settle back into fair market competitive levels, and appendicitis would not be a cause of bankruptcy. We might even see some communities of less than 5,000 that could have their own hospitals again, like they used to be able to do when everyone paid his own medical expenses.

Best wishes, Senator Kennedy. May you live to be a hundred. And in your remaining 20+ years, may you get out a little bit and realize what real people have to face every day. We're not asking for the luxurious health care that you have due to your hard work and years of service to your district. We just want something we can afford.

Consolidarity: The Sequel

[Note: This article is a follow-up to a previously published article that can be found at below -- "Consolidarity."]
I went to see my friend Johnny last night. He's been my friend for seven years. Johnny was, I think, a victim of multiple sclerosis. He was always in his wheelchair, and it was difficult for him to present a hand to shake, but I soon found he did not like a pat on the shoulder. So I waited for the hand. He had a special name he called me -- one that no one else used. He also had one for my wife. Johnny liked to sing when I came to visit him. No one could understand the words, except, maybe, him. His conversation was fully understandable, but his singing; well, nobody liked his singing, except maybe me. Some of the other residents of the nursing home would clap their hands over their ears and tell him to be quiet, but he just kept smiling and singing.

Johnny loved the Dallas Cowboys, and rooted for them through thick and thin. He could tolerate their repulsive owner, and he forgave them for putting T.O. on their team, something that I cannot bring myself to do. Johnny was one of the best fans the Cowboys have ever had. He was devastated by their loss to the Giants.

Why am I talking in the past tense? Because I went to visit Johnny at the funeral home last night. Instead of a suit and tie, they had dressed him in his Dallas Cowboys shirt, with Tony Romo's name and #9 on it, and wearing his warm-ups. It was totally appropriate, and I appreciate his family knowing him well enough to dress him that way.

Johnny was not killed by anyone. He was not a victim of foul play. He was only a "result" of a business decision. Since they "consolidated" our local nursing home with the big one in the nearest town, three of my friends have died. The move, combined with poor health, was too much for them. I don't really hold anyone liable. Johnny never really recovered after the Cowboys' loss, so I would have to blame Tony Romo as well.

But I cannot shake the idea that Johnny would still be around if he had not been so suddenly uprooted with absolutely no advance notice. Yes, I know that things like this often have to happen, but to the most vulnerable in our society, do they have to happen so fast? Johnny is a representative of what can happen to all of us. You're sitting at your desk, at a job you like (or tolerate), and saving up for retirement in, say, 10 years, when one day, your boss comes in and says, "You've done a great job, but we've just been bought out, and the parent company is downsizing." You find you have a week to start looking for a new job. At least you will probably get a severance or a "buy out."

Johnny didn't. He just got moved. Right in the middle of a serious bout with a cold or flu virus. From his home for the last (at least) 7 years, to a hospital, and then to another room he had never been in. He had to die in a strange room. With an unknown roommate (a space-saving, cost-saving move, I might add). His last roommate had been his mother, who died four years ago.

So Johnny got consolidated, along with about 30 others, and at least three have already died. I used to do a little gardening, and I know what a transplant can do to a young, tender plant. You have to shelter them from the sun and elements for a while, give them extra care, and even then, you'll lose a few. I'm amazed at how many are being displaced by "productive fiscal decisions" in our own culture.

Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I worked my way through it by being an imported food vendor. I serviced a major grocery chain. The stores had a "Midas" touch -- through great marketing and "location, location, location," they grew. Thousands worked for them. I was surprised when, suddenly, in the early 1990's, they were just -- gone.

What caused their demise? Incompetence? No. Change in demographics? Economic downturns? None of that. They were merely "bought," or absorbed, by a wealthy corporation, then they were stripped of their assets, and the rest was sold off. I don't know what happened to the friends I had made during that time, who were working their way up in a productive, promising corporation. The stores were great, but consolidation ransacked them. Somebody made billions of dollars, but we all lost in the long run.

I don't think the huge conglomerate that bought all of these nursing homes made "billions," but they did cut costs, and probably were able to "downsize" a little. I also found out yesterday that the four or five in the old nursing home that did not get out within the weeks' time they were given had no heat in the place after the eviction date. Somehow, I thought "care" centers could do better than that.

Johnny will be buried today some time after 2:00. He looked great just three weeks ago, the last time I shook his hand and we talked about the Cowboys and the Super Bowl. At least I have the assurance of his burial in a traditional cemetery. I recently attended the funerals of an aunt and uncle who were buried in a "consolidated" one. He is eight or nine feet below ground; she is six feet. They don't take up much space in that cemetery; they don't bother too many people, and they serve a "cost effective" purpose. And isn't that why we all love consolidation so much?

Consolidarity

It was just a little thing: a little nursing home composed of little people in a little town -- definitely not nearly as important as Britney whats-her-name's latest journey into rehab that made the news above the Middle East last week.

But it was important to those it affected. In a little town near where I live, with a little nursing home that used to be a little hospital, filled with little people who used to be housewives, school teachers, farmers, salesmen, writers, carpenters, and blacksmiths, something happened. Those former people are now line items of government funding that pays salaries of medical workers who give them their medicines, turn them in their beds, and occasionally give them a bath or take them to the restroom.

I've been amazed at the life that was still there when someone took the time to sit with them for a while and just listen. That little nursing home was only half full of patients. They had even converted most of the empty rooms to office space, maintenance headquarters, and storage rooms -- oh, yes, and a break room with coke machines and tables where the residents, who pay more daily than they would for an ocean cruise, were forbidden to enter unless lucky enough to be pushed in there by someone of my size and relative influence.

I felt at home there. I could sit in the living room with them, or go to their personal rooms and sit with them. I would hold my breath for the occasional waft of detergent and urine smell that I somehow think could have been removed. Sometimes I would go down to the dining room, pour myself a cup of coffee, and converse with them as they played dominoes or just sat and visited.

Then, the same week as Christmas, they were told that they all had to be out in the next 7 days. But it was okay. The big parent company that owns several nursing homes and knows how to soak them for the maximum in government money, was going to safely move them to the bigger home in the bigger nearby city.

I went there last week, looking for them. I found a few, though many were just names on the door. They are not there -- still in transit somewhere. The old place has yellow tape around it and stock trailers moving out furniture and equipment. The few I found smiled as they recognized me. I tried to visit with one of them in the lobby, but it was hard to do. It was too noisy. They had wheeled several older ones to watch the Cartoon Network, featuring "Spongebob Squarepants" and some act of violence against a Fred Flintstone lookalike. I wondered if anybody even cared whether these old people were being cared for.

The highly efficient staff asked me at least five times, "Can I help you, sir?" The translation, of course, is "You are not needed here." I wheeled one of my friends through the hallway. He wanted to see if there was a new place he could look out the window and see the occasional truck pass by like he used to do. I was checking the tags on the doors, trying to find my old friends. I was told at least three times that my friend "belonged" in the other wing. I stopped trying to explain. I really felt out of place in this geriatric processing unit.

I couldn't pour myself a cup of coffee in this place. I still haven't found a soda machine so I can slip one of my friends a forbidden Dr. Pepper before I leave. And I grieve one more piece of my life being cut off and thrown away.

Of course, it's for our own good. It's called "consolidation," which means sweeping up little things into bigger piles for easier disposal. Fifty years ago, we did it for our schools, to make education better. Of course, the people who could send us to the moon and back grew up in "pre-consolidated" schools. Consolidated schools teach about diversity and condom usage, and we wonder why things are not as good as they "used to be."

The nursing home building in the old place was actually a hospital that was built by a doctor in that small town so many years ago. It's easy to tell, because his old house was across the street, and when I sat on the front porch, sunning myself with my elderly friends, I would admire the construction of the old two-story house, built from the same stones. The doctor lived across the street because he wanted to be near his work. Of course, they had to shut that hospital down a generation ago and sent patients to hospitals twenty miles away, where they are now sent by helicopter to even bigger hospitals 200-300 miles away to get "quality" medical care.

We have been "consolidated" to absurdity. Buy a pencil, and it comes from a corporate warehouse in a big city that imported it from China. Remember when you could buy a food item, and it was the only thing the company made? Now it's a product from a division that's a subdivision of another entity which in turn belongs to another corporation with a hyphenated name. Everything you eat and drink, or take as medication, can be traced back to two or three worldwide mega-corporations who have never heard of you or the town you live in.

Now they are processing people. The day they closed the local nursing home, they also combined the only two in my old hometown. It seems the same corporation owned them, too. They did some type of consolidation that drove down costs while maintaining profit.

By the way, the bigger nursing home in the bigger town has a nice, corporate, enhanced soap-and-urine smell that way outdoes the old one.

Why consolidation? It's easier to control, it's less personal so you don't get mixed up with actual people, and it's way more profitable. And it's killed community hospitals, elderly care, small town schools, mom and pop operations, and ultimately, us!

Of course, our government has consolidated, too. States are no longer states, but administrative districts of an ever-increasing federal government. It's all around us. What can I do about it? First, call on all of us to maintain some form of individuality, to fiercely refuse to be labeled by the "consolidators," and to walk away from the hometown bank when the big corporation buys it -- at least until we don't have a choice; to pay a higher price when something says "Made in USA," and to tell your doctor you don't need another test somewhere else -- that the reason you came to your hometown clinic is because this is where you live.

I wonder if I'll ever spend another tranquil day with my elderly friends. They don't last too long, anyway, but I could always find new ones in my hometown nursing home. Now I will have to find new ways to acquaint myself with them -- after they clear processing, and before they are taken away to the showers.