Instead of watching the health care bill get passed on Sunday night, I was out at a bar, putting greasy french fries in my belly, processing alcohol through my liver, and punishing my ears with loud noise, all while permeating my lungs with second hand smoke.

Clearly, I’m the guy to talk to about health care.

Facebook: Infirmary of info

When I came home I checked my Facebook and let my friends tell me what happened. Watching a news event unfold on Facebook is like hearing a crazy man screaming on the streets of a crowded city … and he has lots of friends. And they are screaming together in angry unison.

In the future, students working on history projects about the early 21st century will be able to look up social networking sites from an exact date and see people’s first reaction. Journalism has often been called the first draft of history — Facebook is saying your idea out loud before you write it down.

The feed contained such gems as: “i honestly do not care if some people do not have health care, but oh well, gj freeloaders,” “wow, thanks Obama for…nothing,” and “hey Nancy Pelosi, your a (expletive) bitch.” Nine people liked that one, in spite of the wrong form of “you’re.”

“So since being a doctor got tossed out the window last night….new career idea?” said my one friend, a medical student. That would be like me dropping out of the journalism program just because Glenn Beck is still allowed to be on TV.

But for every person I knew against the bill, there were just as many people for the bill. People were strongly divided about it, and I didn’t know a damned thing about the bill.

The plague of politics

After the 2008 election, every brain cell I had devoted to politics packed its bags and left, leaving a decimated wasteland of apathy in my head. It takes about four years for this place to regrow, so when someone throws something political at me, I can’t cognate an intelligent response. Maybe I should have a doctor look at this part of my brain, because isn’t it free now?

Part of the reason this health care thingy is getting so much attention is because of how split apart it has made the country. From my understanding, which includes pretending to listen to people who know about this sort of thing, the entire voting process boiled down to people voting on what their party wanted, and not what they thought was best. There was also a jousting match between gorillas but I may have daydreamed that part.

If this whole thing was just a shouting match between two parties, couldn’t they have gone about it doing something awesome? Which ever party donates the most money to charity wins, maybe? Using your democratic right to vote is overrated anyways, maybe organize a huge pillow fight in the congressional chamber? I’d watch C-SPAN for that.

“Dr. Simons to the ER …”

If anyone should be up to date on health care, it really should be me. I’ve had a pitchfork impaled into my thigh, sliced my thumb open with a Swiss Army knife, I found out you can overdose on Red Bull, and I once accidentally hit a man in the face with a hammer. Total accident. Seriously.

“Throw some dirt on it and stop crying” isn’t going to cut it all the time. Eventually I will have to go to the hospital for something and will need to know if I’m covered or not. With my luck I will eventually wind up in Beer Lake or need my stomach pumped trying to redefine “All you can eat” at Buffalo Wild Wings.

One of these days I will sit down with all the information I can get and get myself learned about this health care stuff. Right after I learn why my car makes this loud wheezing noise when I drive faster than 52 miles per hour and why my cat’s right eye looks funny. Does this health care thing cover pets too?

The good, the bad, and the sick

I know this bill will make people happy. There are thousands of people who work really hard only to be screwed over when an accident happens and the giant evil insurance companies run by Darth Vader proteges make them pay an arm and a leg to fix either an arm and/or a leg.

I know this bill will make people upset. There are thousands of lazy people waiting for another government hand out so that they can feed the hive of kids they had because they were too uneducated to use protection and figured the more spawns, the more money.

Maybe I would know more about this whole thing if the people on TV didn’t spend so much time talking about how much Democrats and Republicans hate each other and actually gave me a decent run down of what all this stuff means, I’d be more in the know. Whatever. I’ll be taking their jobs from them soon.

Money and politics, math and medicine … I don’t need a physician telling me this will all give me a headache (now free of cost!) The truth is that no matter what reforms we do to health care, how we go about keeping the people of this country healthy, or what political ramifications this has, no health care bill will help when the zombies come.

The final prescription

Yes, zombies. The real threat to America. All this bickering and fighting and confusion over health care won’t amount to anything when an angry horde of undead smash the doors down to the Congress building and we have Senator BRAAAAAINS roaming the streets. No amount of free or paid health care will help you when you get bit or are hunkered down in an old cabin in the woods.

Zombies, the real problem, folks. You’ve been warned.