Letter to Obama #25 | Subject: A Note About Healthcare

Letter to Obama #25 | Subject: A Note About Healthcare

Dear President Obama,

I got an email yesterday from info@barackobama.com, in which you said that you need my help passing your health care legislation. Well, I couldn’t finish my letter, as I had a migraine. In this respect, it is the only migraine ever to be opportune, because it made me think a lot about healthcare.

So I have a quick suggestion about doctors. I think it’d be nice if, one day out of the year, we could declare a national holiday that reverses the doctor-patient relationship. I think they’d be better doctors if they understood what it was like on the other side.

First, of course, they’d have to make an appointment, which would entail talking to the robotic operator, and it wouldn’t be one of those easy-to-use voice recorded ones, no, it’ll be the “please say your option aloud” kind. Every time I call them up, the machine tells me to say the word “Appointment” if I want to schedule a visit.

So I say it slowly. The machine tells me it didn’t understand. So I say it again. It asks me to repeat it again. I do so, but now I’m saying it so slowly my voice sounds like I’m either in slow-motion or trying to do an Andre the Giant impression. Of course, it doesn’t process this either.

I really don’t get why this is so hard—there aren’t that many words that rhyme with appointment. Sure, I guess it’s conceivable that I could be saying I’d like to make an ointment, or I’d like to make an anointment, but that’d be pretty strange. Mr. President, why do we even use these robot things if they can’t hear? That’s like using my great-grandmother as a receptionist. She had two miracle ears for a reason.

Anyway, after the third attempt, I usually try making a bunch of modemy noises, you know, to try speaking the robot’s language, but no dice. This usually gets me transferred to the operator, so I guess I must know how to swear in robot or something.

Of course this is no real solution to my problem. I get put on hold and a really stilted voice tells me that my call is valuable to them and there is synthesized background music that was apparently composed by the answering robot in its copious free time. (Speaking of the voice message, if my call is really valuable to them, I wish they would give me money.)

Anyway, once the doctor set the appointment up, they’d get called into the examination room. I’d breeze in twenty minutes late, the smell of formaldehyde and those latex gloves wafting into the room behind me. Of course, I’d be wearing a lab coat (except I’d splatter mine with red food coloring and some uncooked headcheese to keep them guessing).

Then I’d start the interrogation, because that’s what a doctor’s visit feels like sometimes. I mean, no matter what you’re being seen for, they start you off with curt, terse questions. And no matter how truthful you are during the inquisition, the interrogation always gets worse—they shine bright lights in your eyes, stick things in your ears, and you’re often forced to wear a demeaning paper dress. A dress, Mr. President, and one that closes from the back. If that doesn’t make you feel threatened, I don’t know what will.

And don’t think I haven’t noticed the examination table, which looks like a tiny bed, until you realize that it’s really a torture implement for short people. Yes, Mr. President, I’m short, and I’ve seen the foot clamps and arm clamps. I pulled one out during one visit and asked why it was hidden, and the doctor said, “Oh, we don’t usually show people those unless we need to.”

And if you’re really unlucky, they put you in this torpedo-tube thing that makes loud noises and you think they’re going to shoot you at a ship or something. Or worse yet, they tell you need a shot or that they need to draw blood, which is really just another way to say that they are going to stab you slightly. If that’s the case, they’ll sometimes pull out the most painful torture tool of all; that finger catapult thing—the one that’s supposed to “just be a pinprick” but makes it feel like one finger is being attacked by some sort of raptor.

Of course, since I’m not a sadist, I wouldn’t subject my doctor-patient to any of this cruel treatment. Instead, I’d simply make sure to repeatedly test the doctor’s reflexes with that little hammer. You know, the one they always use on your knees? Mr. President, I have pretty small knees. And they are sensitive. If you wanted to torture me, that’s all you’d have to do. You can tell the CIA that; they wouldn’t have to waterboard me. Every time I go to the doctor’s office, I see that little hammer while I’m waiting for the doctor to arrive, and I always want to hide it so he skips that part.

I’d then spend the next ten minutes asking doctor-patient about their “symptoms,” and every once in a while, I’d whack them with that little hammer just to keep them guessing. Then, no matter what their symptoms were, I’d use big words like “nonspecific” and “hypochondria” and tell them that things should clear up on their own. And I’d threaten them with that little hammer and tell them not to come back.

Take Care,

Brett Ortler