A Spork in the Road

Let’s talk about legality.

So I’m still investigating the details of this matter, but let’s look at how things are laid out right now.

Because I went to a massage therapist off and on last year… and because the massage therapist mentioned I might want to see my doctor if the swelling by my collarbone didn’t go down… and because the swelling DID go down and I figured that was that…

My health insurance company dropped me entirely when I needed insurance the most.

Is this legal? Possibly.

But then, depending on whom you ask and how you ask it, so was walling prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. (”Walling,” in case you’re not in the know with government torture terminology, is what officials in the Bush administration called the procedure of ramming a prisoner’s head into a wall during interrogation. It earned at least one ranking Guantanamo Bay officer a commendation after he cracked a prisoner’s jaw open and documented the results with photographs.)

Ironically, if I had been less attentive to my health over the past couple of years — if I had not bothered with yoga classes or massage therapists or the like — I might be in a different situation with insurance. Of course, everyone is telling me that health insurance companies do whatever they can to deny coverage, so I suppose none of this should have come as any surprise.

No matter how things pan out with my personal crusade against United Healthcare’s “Golden Rule” (cue hollow laughter), I want people to look at the mess that is our healthcare system and stop accepting the appalling state of affairs.

I thank all that is holy and good in the universe that this nation elected a man who would look at torture and condemn it as corrosive to the character of the country.

I have high hopes that the torture chamber that is our health care system will be similarly overhauled.