Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Doctor Will See You on Gallifrey Now: My Dream of Universal Health Coverage


It might have been something I ate, but my wife is pretty sure my dream came from using the DVR to watch "House" back-to-back with several episodes of a certain long-running, sci-fi show from BBC America.

"From the way you were mumbling," she said when I woke up, "it sounded like you were dreaming about a TARDIS."

"As a matter of fact, there was a TARDIS in it. And he still called himself 'the Doctor,' but it was because of his knowledge of internal medicine, not the outer reaches of the universe. At least that's what I thought at first."

"Tell me about it."

And so I tried, peering through the mists of sleep and relaxing the hand that only a moment ago had seemed to be clutching my insurance card…

"What's happened is that a rupture in the time-space continuum has opened up between the frontal lobes of your brain, which will lead to a complete metabolic shutdown if we don't find a way to close the portal."

A door in my head? Is that what he was telling me my problem was -- this animated, bow-tie-wearing medical professional who had only just met me, bursting into his own office as if expecting to catch me fiddling with a knob located just above my left eye? OK, I was feeling a little dizzy, probably because I kept having the odd sensation that the examining table where I was sitting was moving. But impressive as it was, his split-second "brain portal" diagnosis would have been more convincing if I hadn't been coming to see him about a nagging cough.

"And by the way that doesn’t sound too good either," he said after my chest had heaved in several noisy convulsions.

But I was too stunned by all his mad-scientist palaver to say anything more than, "Do you really take my health insurance?"

"Universal coverage," he said, waving a medical chart at me.

"I don't think I have that one. My health insurance is very particular about what doctors it will pay for and which ones are out of network."

"No, no, I'm not talking about some faceless bureaucracy but the universe itself, which insures each and every one of us down to the last particle of our being. The key is not to interrupt the flow of Omega corpuscles. Now let's have a look-see at your chart!"

While he glanced at it, I nervously scouted the walls for a diploma of some kind. "Omega corpuscles" was the sort of answer I used to put on biology tests I hadn't studied for. The most I could come up with, though, was a certificate from the Gallifreyan Institute of Cosmic Studies, which sounded like a place for doctors who couldn’t get into real medical schools. Still, even one of those could manage to prescribe a simple antibiotic.

"Immunizations up to date – no history of plague –Aha! Now that's very curious. Would you mind stepping into my vehicle? It's parked just outside." In a sudden burst of impatience he'd flung the chart aside.

"But you haven't even listened to my lungs."

"On the contrary, I can hear them quite well from here."

"But your stethoscope –"

I had been semi-reassured to see one hanging on the wall near some of the other equipment you'd expect to find in a normal doctor's office: thermometer, blood pressure machine, and a large, revolving eye. But I was bothered by a few things, too, like his talk of listening to my lungs from afar and the way the blood pressure cuff seemed to be expanding and contracting on its own.

"Extra-sensory auditory calibration," he explained. "Every time you come here, the sound of your lungs leaves an impression in the fabric of space. So there's already an echo from your last visit –"

"Except this is my first one." Did he even bother with medical records at all? Next time I needed a physician I was going to hold out for a real referral.

"But what a puzzle this is turning out to be! If those weren't your lung impressions I just heard, I wonder whose chart it was I tossed on the floor. Must have you confused with someone from the other planet Earth. Unless –" he seemed to be struck by some medical insight, "No, but it couldn't be – but that would mean – no, no, they couldn't be back. They were banished several millennia ago by the High Council."

"To tell you the truth, doctor —" After some more hacking I recovered enough to continue. "I haven't decided if I'm coming back. Could you please stop with all the obscure medical jargon and say something in plain English?"

"Then in plain English: if you don't do exactly what I say, you only have 72 more seconds to live." I hadn't thought my cough was quite that serious, but he sounded pretty sure of his new diagnosis. And if he was right, there was no time for a second opinion. "Listen!" I thought this was for more lung sounds, but he went on to explain. "They're inter-galactic cyber-case-managers sent by the insurance company to drown us in unnecessary paperwork. And I do mean quite literally 'drown.' So I'm afraid we've got to hurry."

Inter-galactic cyber what? But feeling the examining table start rocking beneath me again, I decided to put off questions for now. And I soon saw who, if not exactly what, he meant. From one end of the hallway outside his office, a group of figures was advancing upon us in ominous lockstep. I would have thought they were nurses if it weren't for all the tentacles writhing up from under their starched uniforms.

At the opposite end was – of all things – a blue phone booth that looked as out of date as my doctor's bow tie. It hadn't been there when I arrived so I figured he must have brought it with him to spruce up the décor.

With the tentacles writhing closer, I was soon barreling down the hall like a runaway IV machine, trying to follow not just my doctor but also any signs I could find to the nearest "Emergency Exit."

"In here!" he shouted.

In where? There were no signs, just the blue box.

"But Doctor!" I cried out as a tentacle nearly lassoed my ankle. "I have my cell with me."

"There's no need to clone just yet. In here, I said!"

Maybe the plan was for us to make a 911 call to the creators of "The X-Files."

But the phone booth turned out to be his vehicle, parked in what I could only assume was his reserved "Doctors Only" space. Even cooler, though, was that the interior of his vehicle was fitted out with all sorts of advanced gadgetry and seemed to offer its own simple yet elegant solution to the problem of overcrowded hospital facilities: they just needed to be much bigger on the inside than they were on the outside. In fact, this one was so roomy inside and its walls were covered with so many buttons, levers, and blinking lights that all I could say was, "No way my insurance is going to pay for this!"

"Not to worry. So long as we've left the case managers in the inter-galactic dust, we can just bill it to the universe. Now which part of it do you want to see first?"

"How about a pharmacy?" I suggested while my lungs gave vent to more loud, unhealthy impressions. But he seemed to have picked up some kind of distress signal because we were off in another direction altogether.

"I'm not sure they had pharmacies in ancient Babylon, but we'll certainly look," he promised as he began adjusting the controls to set our course. "Now hang on tight because it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Universal health coverage, I sighed. It might be seriously flawed after all.

Monday, January 30, 2012

P.S. 61 Revisited, or First Day of Kindergarten Blues


"You could feel the old world go, and the new one beginning."
Bob Dylan Chronicles.

They've got me seated next to this kid named Harry, who keeps asking for his mommy and checking to make sure he's still got his bus pass. I bet he's never been stoned a day in his life.

School is a room full of uptight midgets and a squint-eyed queen in charge. The queen says we have to call her Mrs. White and tell her what we want to be when we grow up. Harry wants to be president. But when I raise my hand, she acts like being a free-associating singer/songwriter isn’t a real career.

"Bobby, don't you want to write songs people can understand? How will you support a family if you sound like someone who's talking in his sleep?"

America the Beautiful where the poets have to be in bed by 8 and the transportation freaks grow up to be president. Where the inmates aren't just running the asylum. They're renting it out for parties.

In this place, if you have some ideas of your own, want to do things the slightest bit differently, they brand you as a troublemaker and write your name on the blackboard. Then if you still don’t want to sit in their circle and play their mind-control games, they'll up the ante by sticking you off in some corner by yourself, then calling home and finding out they've got the wrong last name up there on the board.

The folks will say it should still be Zimmerman. No one gave you permission to change it or knows a thing about you reinventing yourself as some kind of "modern-day troubadour."

Am already sure if I ever do meet someone interesting around here it’s going to be on the blackboard.

At recess asked if anybody was into Woody Guthrie or Big Bill Broonzy, but the kids are still listening to "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Row,Row, Row your Boat." They're the ones living in a dream world.

Top 40 is all they play is in this one-radio-station town. After lunch the squint-eyed queen has her assistant Jezebel, Miss Betsy, take out her guitar and make us sing a song about some spider crawling to the top of a waterspout.

When I said the song wasn't very different, in fact, sounded like a lot of other stuff out there and that "itsy bitsy" wasn't exactly the language of field hands or striking coal miners, Miss Betsy became all upset. She told me the song was about persistence and not giving up. I said she should really be singing about the Spanish Inquisition. Those guys with their thumbscrews didn’t give up either.

She said at least her song rhymed as if a future free-associating singer/ songwriter wouldn’t know how to do that. I said that if she wanted rhyme –

Ma, I'm too young to die of boredom
Please don't send me back.
All day at Club Inquisition
Just down from the railroad track.

That made Miss Betsy lower the neck of her guitar. So I added a few more verses: about how kids were being shoved into boxes and mailed off to Never Never Land, how Picasso and Houdini were hiding under their desks during bomb drills, how somebody had kidnapped Mary's little lamb and was keeping it locked up in afterschool detention along with the rest of the misfits:

And somewhere the Queen is smiling
While her trigger-finger is dialing
The number to say, “He won’t be home no more.
Ma, he won’t be home at four.”

That's as far as I've gotten with it, but Harry and this other kid started to cry. And after the whole hootenanny was over, Mrs. White took Miss Betsy aside for a long private talk, then came back with some news.

They're skipping me a grade.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Suburban Train Times

Suburban Train Times

“Attention Mountain Creek:

Due to downed electrical wires and slashed budgets, we may be experiencing some disruptions on our westbound lines. At this moment it looks as if the only trains affected will be the 7:59 to Pine Ridge and the 8:15 to Glenwood, which will be arriving in reverse chronological order. But in the past we have also had problems with trains switching to a weekend schedule even though it is only Monday. We thank you in advance for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

The 7:59 to Pine Ridge has fallen very far behind indeed. Passengers hoping to reach Pine Ridge are now being urged to walk the short distance to West Strayton Boulevard, where it is our understanding that they can catch a cab. Otherwise, they can wait for the 9:30 to Hinleyton Arms and transfer at Little Falls station, which we are hoping to renovate someday.
Again, we thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”


“Attention Mountain Creek:

We deeply regret if any Pine Ridge passengers have already set out on foot for West Strayton Boulevard. It has just come to our attention that the distance is a good 4 or 5 miles and cabs are expensive.
More gloomy news is that the 9:30 train to Hinleyton Arms does not seem to be going there after all. Or if it is, it is taking a very roundabout route, making none of its usual stops. We will let you know as soon as we have more information.
One last time (we hope) we thank you for your patience and -- well, you know the drill.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

In a development that has even surprised us, the 9:30 train to Hinleyton Arms, if that's what it ever was, has gone AWOL, taking with it the 9:24 train to Morris Plains. If anyone has seen either of these in the last ten minutes, we would appreciate a text. The good news is that the 7:59 train to Pine Ridge is catching up to up to the 8:15 to Glenwood. As of now, they are both due to arrive at the same time on the center track.
We thank you for your inconvenience and apologize for your patience.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

No status change. The 9:24 train to Morris Plains has been reported in the vicinity of Tyler Springs. We are actively investigating.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

A train is now boarding on the center track. We will not bore you with all the details. We will only say this. It may be going to Pine Ridge or even Timbuktu, for all we know. (Hey, sometimes we get frustrated too.) But we would be pretty surprised if it were Hinleyton Arms or Morris Plains.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

False alarm. There is no train boarding on the center track. We repeat: no train that we know of is boarding on the center track. Passengers boarding on the center track do so at their own risk. Passengers are advised only to board on a track where they see a uniformed conductor. And a train. That is important too.”