A cautionary tale on the eve of destruction

Okay, I knew things were getting weird in mid-February when the “climate change” loons said the unusual amount of snow we were getting in otherwise temperate parts of the country was somehow due to global warming. Go figure. They already had their minds made up, and didn’t want to be confused with facts.

Normally, our corner of the biosphere gets a few inches of snow at most every winter. It’s here for a day or two, then it’s gone. Between December and the end of February, we suffer through about six weeks of what people in other parts of the country would refer to as “serious winter weather.” The rest of the season is just mildly cold and sufficiently gloomy.

This year we got a lot of snow. I am always enamored of the stuff, figuring if we’re going to have cold temperatures, we might as well have some rare seasonal beauty to accompany it. Miz Possum is a Michigander by birth, and has been devoid of any enchantment with the white stuff since she was a teenager.

With snow comes ice, and that turned the narrow road curving up Scorpion Hill into a ski slope worthy of the Olympics. Shaun White is welcome to stop by with his snowboard any time the weather's right for him. Miz Possum had to abandon her car in white-out conditions long before she made it into the neighborhood when “the big one” caught her at work late one Friday afternoon. Two days later, the sun was out and it looked like things were melting off sufficiently, so she retrieved the car and made a run at the 30° incline. The little red car spun out halfway up and ended fetched up against a fence post. Two of our intrepid and fully ambulatory neighbors showed up the following day with a come-along hand winch, chains, and tow straps. What followed looked like—as mentioned in the previous post—the German army’s retreat from Russia during War II. The neighbor’s Jeep 4X4 got mired in the ice as well. He was able to slide back down to dry ground without too much trouble, but Miz Possum’s car had to be winched inch-by-inch up the hill to a thawed spot, accompanied by a lot of shoveling and chipping at the black ice/gravel mix, where some professional stunt driving finally got it across the tundra to a parking space.

The next day, a large delivery truck tried its luck and failed. The driver spent over an hour hacking and shoveling to prep enough road surface to gain traction and skid onto the dry spot for a turnaround. (No one in their right mind tries backing down Scorpion Hill in any sort of weather.)

During both of these misadventures, I made fresh coffee, bundled up, and watched from the deck. I wanted to be down there helping, but a wheelchair on a ski slope recalls the proverbial redneck’s last words: “Hey! Watch this!” I was of a mind that I should at least share the suffering in the biting wind, and offer what moral support I could thereby.

That notion was not one of my better ideas. I was already wheezing with some kind of bronchial malfunction, and the hours spent in the cold air aggravated the condition. By the time the vehicular follies were finished and things had really thawed out, I was choking and gasping even in the relative warmth of my living room. At one point Miz Possum threatened to drag me to the doctor, whereupon I gave my standard reply: “I’m not bleeding, so I don’t need a doctor!”

I had my regularly scheduled checkup with the aforementioned doctor the second week of this month. As I was explaining the creeping miseries I had endured the previous month, I broke into another coughing fit. The doctor listened to my lungs and reached for the prescription pad. She said it was a mild infection, and a dose of antibiotics would clear it right up.

That was on a Thursday. Saturday afternoon, Miz Possum and I made our weekly grocery run into Blue Ridge. The store that we frequent has an in-house pharmacy. Since my regular pharmacy closes early on Saturdays, it was strongly suggested that I get my one-up antibiotic prescription filled at the grocery store. Once inside, I went straight to the counter and handed the prescription and my insurance card to the competent-looking druggist. “Come back in fifteen minutes,” he told me.

So, I cruised around on the little electric cripple cart and stocked up on necessities like beer, frozen pizza, nacho chips, cigarettes, and dog food. When the allotted time had passed, I returned to the drug counter. The pharmacist handed my insurance card and unfilled prescription back to me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve tried for twenty minutes to get verification on your coverage. I tried with your card number, your name, and your birth date. Nothing is going through. I can’t verify your coverage.”

Now, this is vital to this narrative: I have “federalized” health care insurance. My coverage—well ahead of Obama-care as proposed—already has the full backing and blessing of The State. My handing over of that insurance card should be the equivalent of giving a Ferrari dealer a platinum MasterCard and saying “I’ll take the red one.” Instead, I’m suddenly denied a bottle of antibiotics for a simple respiratory ailment.

“So what’s up with this?” I asked. “They haven’t even voted on reforming health care yet. Why am I cut off?” The pharmacist shrugged; that was something I’d see a lot more of in the next few days. I assured him I’d get to the bottom of this mystery, and we talked for a minute about what Obama-care might portend for others. The pharmacist was of the opinion that many of his customers would find themselves in the same situation if “reform” became law.

When we got home, I called the toll-free number on the back of my insurance card, even though it was 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon; not the ideal time to catch a bureaucrat napping on the job. I went through the automated menu, entered my number and date of service as prompted, and the mechanical voice told me I was covered. I noted down, and then called, the other number it gave me for prescription assistance. To my surprise, I reached a live person, who also told me I was covered. Great, I thought. I’ll just wait until Monday and call my regular pharmacist.

Waiting until Monday was yet another bad idea. The cough worsened, and Sunday night I ended up in the emergency room of our local hospital, begging for my life like an illegal alien. They took my insurance card during the admittance process, only to show up at my bedside the next morning asking how I planned to pay for my treatment since they couldn’t verify my coverage. I was too exhausted to rip the IV out of my arm and pitch a proper Irish fit of temper, so I mumbled something about it being taken care of, foamed at the mouth a bit, and went back to sleep.

The next day, on my way out the door, I happened to pass the hospital administrator. I whipped out my insurance card and—reading the address off the back—told her where to send the bill. Had I been less of a gentleman, I would’ve told her where to shove it. Doctors do not like me; I am an irascible patient who loathes hospitals.

On the drive home, I remarked to Miz Possum: “You know what? I think all of this is just a sneak preview of what we’re in for when they pass this health-care crap.”

She just nodded.

A couple of days ago, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wryly remarked that Nancy Pelosi has her portion of Congress “liquored up on sake” regarding the big health-care “reform” bill. The honorable Senator is obviously familiar with history. A snort of sake was part of the departure ritual for Japanese kamikaze pilots during War II. They knew they were headed for self-immolation, but the majority of them went anyway, diving through a hellfire of flying bullets and exploding shells to their deaths. The film footage of them going down in flames is breathtaking.

Stick a fork in Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and as many Democrat members of Congress as are up for re-election this November. They’re done. If they pass this wildly unpopular health-care bill, they’ll make history, but it will be the kind of Pyrrhic victory those Japanese pilots achieved in the 1940s.

“LOOK, HON! DEMOCRATS!”

I’ll close with the e-mail I sent to my Congressman, Nathan Deal of the 9th District of Georgia, last Wednesday:

"I appreciate your staying on in Washington to vote on 'Obamacare' after announcing your retirement from Congress. If this disastrous bill ever comes up for a vote, I trust you will do the right thing and deny it any form of support.

"Please bear in mind that your constituents at home are watching this travesty unfold, and your gubernatorial aspirations may well hinge on your keeping well away from this radioactive legislation, unless you act in opposition to it.

"My urging you to vote "NO" on health care "reform" may well be a moot point, as the dictatorial elite in DC seems to have discovered a parliamentary hat-trick that will remove them yet another notch from any semblance of service or response to the will of the people who elected them.

"You have my tentative vote for governor, but I do read the Congressional Quarterly. Please do the right thing."

Let’s pray enough of our elected officials respond to the will of the people and do the right thing.