Caught in a bind

Jan 10, 2006 by Naomi.

A toothpick dislodges a grizzly piece of salami from between my aging teeth and I am reminded of the question asked by the hospital preparatory nurse: Do I have dentures? No. I don’t know what that had to do with a cataract removal. And I admit that it is an odd luck that I have no dentures. The truth is the luck of being poor. Well that is odd isn’t it? For the most part, when a tooth was too decayed to repair, I had it pulled and not with full approval from the dentist. No money in our growing family for a cap or bridge. Over 78 years I’ve only lost two. I never had any wisdom teeth. Lack of adequate diet on my mother’s part accounts for that.

The lack of money was the same reason I never smoked, especially in 1945 at the atrocious price of ten cents a pack. The luck came from the fact that during the height of the smoking craze I was not old enough to join the armed forces to become indocrinated by the exotic advertising of tobacco companies and addicted to cigarettes. There is probably more to it than that because two of my siblings served in the great war to end all wars and never took up the habit. They turned their free cigarette allotment into cash for purchase power later when they got home.

This entire reflection came because of recalling my health history which was scrutinized earlier this week while registering for an operation to remove a cataract from my left eye. Before measuring my eye for the replacement lens I was given a full page listing of risky conditions that may have occurred in my family. I was happy to check “no” all down the list. I had most of the childhood diseases before age six, brought home by older school kids, except for mumps. They visited me ten years later forcing me to miss a senior high school assembly to receive my National Honor Society pin.

Recent operations? None. Medications? None. Am I bragging? No, but I can tell you it is no small economic drain to face medical procedures and I’m happy not to have had the burden of either surgeries or prescriptions. Medicaid coverage and my pension benefits include insurance if I really need it, as I do now. Big fat companies want universal insurance instead of universal health care. Is it possible that people will fall for that substitution? Maybe so. We look to the health care system for every little ache or pain. Witness the advertisements on prime time television. Take a pill to prevent gas. Take a pill to prevent high cholesterol. Take a pill to prevent incontinence. Take a pill to sleep. Take a pill to stay alert. Take a pill for any pain. Ask your doctor if it is ok for you. The side effects may be worse than the problem.

Our free enterprise system is not free. Our naivety allows free tax breaks to giant corporations that freely sell us all the answers.

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