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Dave, Rutger’s original owner, has been lying in the ICU for ten days now, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Last year when he was in the ICU in a very similar condition, they asked him if he would like to be a DNR. “Hell, no!” he replied. “Why should I make things easy for you?”
So they let him out and offered him treatment with a state-of-the-art technology called a laser knife. Dave has brain cancer. Against all expectations, the treatment bought him an extra year.
Was he happy during this extra year? I don’t know. I don’t actually know Dave. He’s someone B used to work with at the movie theater. But for some reason, I feel as though I know Dave. I know a lot about Dave. He used to own a couple of drive-in movie theaters. They went bust so he brought the dying art of film projection to Ithaca’s only movie art house where the politically correct manager – she used to be the owner but then the art house threatened to go belly-up so they turned it into a nonprofit and made her Manager For Life – ruthlessly underpaid him and denied him health coverage. She’s against fracking though, so that makes her all right.
See, that’s why I only very reluctantly climb aboard that bus. The environmental movement is basically a way for rich people to make believe they’re politically progressive while retaining all the prerogatives of social injustice. Poor rich people! They have to share the planet with the rest of us slobs, and naturally they don’t like it. Rising gasoline prices are a regressive tax upon the poor. People who think rising gas prices are a good thing because they’ll make people drive less are generally not the people stuck in the trap of having to drive to work to buy that gas.
But I digress.
Back to Dave.
Ten days ago, he had another seizure and lost consciousness. So they brought him back to the ICU and hooked him up to machines again. Some time during one of his brief windows of consciousness, they asked him again: Would you like to be a DNR? This time, he said “Yes.” It’s debatable from both the legal and ethical perspective whether this DNR is legitimate because if you’d asked Dave, “Say what’s your name? And would you like to be a DNR?” it’s doubtful whether he would have been able to answer that first question. But Dave has no family, no heirs, no one likely to bring the issue up in court.
And no health insurance either. How much has it cost the taxpayers to maintain Dave in Cayuga Medical Center’s intensive care unit for the past ten days? I’m guessing 500,000 K is an underestimate. What a ridiculous waste of money. I find it tragic that Dave while he’s dying is worthy of a bigger cash investment than Dave ever was while he was struggling to stay alive. That’s because these deadpool dollars are spilling over into the pockets of institutionally mismanaged hospitals and all those other networked money pits that comprise American healthcare today.
Why couldn’t some good fairy just have sought Dave out a decade ago and said, “Here. I’d like you to shoot yourself in ten years. And to recompense you for your troubles, here’s half a million bucks for you to spend however you like.”
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if it worked like that?
Last year when he was in the ICU in a very similar condition, they asked him if he would like to be a DNR. “Hell, no!” he replied. “Why should I make things easy for you?”
So they let him out and offered him treatment with a state-of-the-art technology called a laser knife. Dave has brain cancer. Against all expectations, the treatment bought him an extra year.
Was he happy during this extra year? I don’t know. I don’t actually know Dave. He’s someone B used to work with at the movie theater. But for some reason, I feel as though I know Dave. I know a lot about Dave. He used to own a couple of drive-in movie theaters. They went bust so he brought the dying art of film projection to Ithaca’s only movie art house where the politically correct manager – she used to be the owner but then the art house threatened to go belly-up so they turned it into a nonprofit and made her Manager For Life – ruthlessly underpaid him and denied him health coverage. She’s against fracking though, so that makes her all right.
See, that’s why I only very reluctantly climb aboard that bus. The environmental movement is basically a way for rich people to make believe they’re politically progressive while retaining all the prerogatives of social injustice. Poor rich people! They have to share the planet with the rest of us slobs, and naturally they don’t like it. Rising gasoline prices are a regressive tax upon the poor. People who think rising gas prices are a good thing because they’ll make people drive less are generally not the people stuck in the trap of having to drive to work to buy that gas.
But I digress.
Back to Dave.
Ten days ago, he had another seizure and lost consciousness. So they brought him back to the ICU and hooked him up to machines again. Some time during one of his brief windows of consciousness, they asked him again: Would you like to be a DNR? This time, he said “Yes.” It’s debatable from both the legal and ethical perspective whether this DNR is legitimate because if you’d asked Dave, “Say what’s your name? And would you like to be a DNR?” it’s doubtful whether he would have been able to answer that first question. But Dave has no family, no heirs, no one likely to bring the issue up in court.
And no health insurance either. How much has it cost the taxpayers to maintain Dave in Cayuga Medical Center’s intensive care unit for the past ten days? I’m guessing 500,000 K is an underestimate. What a ridiculous waste of money. I find it tragic that Dave while he’s dying is worthy of a bigger cash investment than Dave ever was while he was struggling to stay alive. That’s because these deadpool dollars are spilling over into the pockets of institutionally mismanaged hospitals and all those other networked money pits that comprise American healthcare today.
Why couldn’t some good fairy just have sought Dave out a decade ago and said, “Here. I’d like you to shoot yourself in ten years. And to recompense you for your troubles, here’s half a million bucks for you to spend however you like.”
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if it worked like that?
