Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease

I was tagged by Babs for this one…

“Write something giving an example of the phrase, ” There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch” in action. And tag five other people.”

Babs’ tag for me: “Squeaky Wheel, I’m sure you can come up with something.”

Hahaha…confidence in my snarking abilities! YESS!

You guys know my feelings on several issues where people take advantage of the system. Some obvious examples are things like welfare and SSI (some people legitimately need a little help to get back on their feet, but when there’s something that’s free, there will ALWAYS be people taking advantage of it).

My biggest pet peeve right now, by far, is the “hey my foot hurts - I’m going to go to the ER real quick and get somethin’, k?” phenomenon that’s encouraging the socialist health care push that’s been happening in our country for a while.

The non-emergency cases that go to the emergency room? To put the following rant in “lolcat” style:

If you have a non-emergency, and you go into an ER to be treated because you’re too much of an impatient asshole to make an appointment at a regular doctor’s office, you have no sympathy from me regarding your wait time and how you’re treated by the reception staff.

If you fit that criteria above, AND you skip out on your bill because you’re also a cheap bastard who likes to take advantage of the fact that most hospitals won’t track you down to pay an ER bill, you’re on my “list”.

If you do all of this and more while insisting that socialist health care is the way to go, you need to be sterilized and deported.

I know that hospitals can’t deny anyone care for any reason. I’m cool with that - I think that if you need help, you shouldn’t have to pay first - have you ever tried to fill out a form at a doctor’s office while some part of your body was threatening to fall off? It’s not fun.

But I *do* think you should have to pay.

If you really can’t afford to go to the doctor, there are charity-run places that will either refer you to a doctor, or, if you’ve got an emergency, find some way for you to pay your bill after the fact. A friend of mine used one of these services after an appendicitis attack landed her in the ER. She made an honest effort to pay, but couldn’t do it, so she researched and found a charity that would help her. It didn’t take long. And because she was TRYING to pay? The hospital helped her find these guys, and gave her all the proper forms to fill out. ZOMG!

Say there are 10 people in a community. One of them goes to the emergency room and skips out on his/her bill. No big deal, right? He/she wasn’t pursued, got their (insert random treatment here), and all is well.

Well, a second person has to go to the emergency room later on. And their bill will be higher than normal, because the hospital has to make up the costs from Fucktard #1 somehow. If Fucktard #2 chooses not to pay as a result of this higher costs (and again, isn’t pursued), the cost will just go up for Fucktard #3, and so on.

There is ALWAYS a cost. You may not have to pay it right now, but we’ll all be paying for it later.

________________________________

Now I’m supposed to tag 5 people.

TD - you’re tagged because you can’t think of anything to write about right now, and this picks a topic for you. You should be able to come up with something, yeah?

Jesse - you haven’t posted in a while, and I KNOW you have an example.

Strings- you have to have something. You can’t work with the underprivileged and needy without seeing “the system” get taken advantage of.

John - you need a good, healthy rant. Test your heart a little. ;-)

CrankyProf - This’ll give you something to do while you’re on bedrest.