Like the classic joke of the two Jewish ladies at the restaurant who agreed the food was inedible, but the portions too small, it is sometimes difficult these days to tell if we are getting too little medical care, or too much.
Bubba was delivering a truckload of shingles to the doctor to fix his roof. He walked into the doctor's office and the receptionist asked him what he had. Bubba said, “I got the shingles.” She wrote down his name, and medical insurance number and told him to have a seat.
Fifteen minutes later a nurse's aide came out and asked Bubba what he had. Bubba said, “I got the shingles.” So she handed him a twelve-page form starting with his height, weight, and a complete medical and credit history and told Bubba to fill out all the pages, and then to go wait in the examining room.
Half an hour later a nurse came in and asked Bubba what he had. Bubba said, “I got the shingles.” So the nurse gave Bubba a blood test, a blood pressure test, an allergy screen, and an electrocardiogram, and told Bubba to take off all his clothes and wait for the doctor.
An hour later the doctor came in and found Bubba sitting patiently in the nude and asked Bubba what he had. Bubba said, “I got the shingles.”
The doctor asked, “How long have you had these shingles?”
Bubba said, “I got into this shingle thing back when I was nineteen.”
Doc said, “OK, here’s a prescription for some stuff you can put on your shingles. If you’ve still got shingles in two weeks, come back again.”
“OK,” said Bubba. “Do you want to look at these shingles now?”
Doc said, “Naw, I know what shingles look like. You say you got shingles, I believe you.”
“Can I get the shingles off my truck now?” Bubba asked.
“I never heard of anybody getting shingles off a truck,” the Doc said with a laugh, “but when you do, you let me know.”
Bubba got his clothes back on, and he went and got the shingles off the truck, and he took them up and laid them on the roof.
Two weeks later, Bubba got a bill for $640 for the entry processing, the tests, and the examination. His insurance denied the claim because he had admitted that he already had the shingles since he was nineteen. He objected that he had only gone there to give the shingles to the doctor, and he didn’t understand why he had to take off his clothes. Bubba couldn’t figure why they seemed to be so confused and offended by that.
“How did you plan to give shingles to the doctor?” the insurance guys asked.
“I’m supposed to see they get laid up on the roof,” Bubba replied.
They were shocked. “You say you got naked and gave the doctor shingles getting laid up on the roof? That could be a considered a sex crime, attempted blackmail, or biological assault, all of which abrogate your policy.” Bubba had to pay.
Bubba found out soon that he had picked up a virus sitting in the lobby with all those wheezing sick people and their snot-gurgling kids, and he picked up a super-staph infection sitting naked on the doctor's bench. Soon he had a wretching cough, and boils on his asshole nothing would cure. He was prescribed antihistamines, antibiotics, antitussants, antidepressants to keep from feeling low, and antipsychotics to deal with the side-effects of the other “medicines”.
Because of the boils, he lost his job driving the delivery truck for the roofing company. Without the job, he lost his insurance. He would take a second mortgage on his house to pay for the addictive prescription medicines he must now take, but he lost all his equity in the collapse of 2008 (oops, sorry, I mean the Obamalapse of 2009).
To keep from losing the house over his medical bills, he divorced his wife and let her have it in the settlement. Bubba now lives on a homeless care program, where he gets free medications, pain-killers, tranquilizers, and a winter coat. He survives by visiting his ex's kitchen door every evening after she gets home from work. She feeds him, but won't let him in because of the smell, and the restraining order her mortgage assistance program demands. If he got a job, he would lose his meds, and he can’t get through a day without them.
The doctor is suing Bubba’s old boss because the roof still leaks.
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