The man who called himself a hero and demanded to be paid for it: An analogy of our healthcare system

Back when I was in junior college, I took a business law class (I was originally a business major at the time, before I switched to liberal arts).  Our class was reviewing a case in our textbook that provided some clear-cut examples of particular laws on the books at the time.

The case was about a man who was walking on the beach one day and happened to spot a man who happened to be drowning, and would’ve certainly lost his life if the man who witnessed his calls for help had gone unheard.  Other people in the area who saw the drowning man stood by feeling helpless about how to help him.

In his testimony, he explained that his reasons for going in were done not to save his life – but to collect a reward from the drowning man for saving his life.  He made sure that after he had jumped in to save him, he paraded himself – in front of the media and to anyone passing by – as the **hero** to everyone who was present, so that there would be absolutely no mistake whatsoever that **he** was the one who did the heroic deed.

Soon after the tragedy had passed, the “hero” contacted the saved drowning victim to claim his reward.  Aghast, the victim was horrified and offended to find that the man who had saved his life was not at all happy about the fact that he could claim himself a hero.  He wanted financial compensation and demanded that he receive a financial reward for it.

The “hero” soon saw that his claims for reward were not going to be rewarded and decided to sue the victim, claiming that he was entitled to financial compensation for his good deeds.

Needless to say, I was deeply sickened by the greed and insensitivity of the man who sought his “reward”.

I think of that story often when I see what our health insurance companies are doing to families and victims of, as Glenn Beck puts it, the “world’s greatest healthcare system”.  How laughable, if it weren’t so painful to watch.

People are being pulled off of respirators, kicked out off hospital beds, and being forced to put up and shut up if they cannot meet their extremely high deductible rates.  God forbid you have a pre-existing condition, like acne, to disqualify you for receiving life-saving cancer surgery.

It’s simply ridiculous and outright offensive.

Every industrialized (and third-world) country on this planet has a healthcare system that is designed to make sure you don’t get treated like a liability or sack of you-know-what before you see a doctor.

If you break your leg while visiting in England, Canada, Germany or France, you are rushed to a hospital, seen immediately by a doctor, cared for like a human being worthy of respect and healthcare, and NEVER given a bill for the care you received.

In our country, that would be labeled as “free healthcare for illegal immigrants”.

Ugh…

Oh, and that guy in the story – the “hero” – he lost his case.  The court was so offended by his demands for a reward that they threw the case out.

We need to do the same to our current profit-before-people healthcare system.