Healthcare Hullabaloo: No Deposit

It was WEIRD.

I went to dinner this weekend with a very close and dear friend. I’ll protect his identity for this blog, so I’ll just call him Cire.

Cire is an extremely unique individual, and always the center of attention wherever he is – he has a very magnetic personality. He also has a few endearing quirks that make him who he is.

Cire loves to shop. He also loves to return. In general, if Cire is going to make a major purchase, we can be assured that he will make it several times, returning his preceding purchase when he finds a better deal, or a better model then his prior purchase. He is also a demanding consumer – if a product does not meet his high expectations, he’s going to return it – no exceptions. Over the many years that I’ve known Cire, I’ve seen him return just about everything.

Those sneakers weren’t as comfortable after wearing them a few weeks? Back to the store they go.

That new shirt didn’t wash well? Kohl’s customer service will soon be visited by Cire, shirt and receipt in hand.

Last night’s Pot Roast was stringy? The butcher at Wegman’s is going to get an earful.

Heck, he even returned his first wife.

In a nutshell, Cire is the All-Time Undisputed Galactic Champions of Returns. Cire is not bashful – Cire will return just about anything – things that most of us would never dream about returning.

I am not exaggerating in the least.

Get the picture? Good.

Okay, so this is what made my dinner this weekend so strange.

Cire was talking about a prescription he had filled recently. For whatever reason, the pills were defective – they were overtly powdery and therefore impossible to swallow because they stuck in the back of his throat.

Half jokingly, I remarked “Well, I’m sure you returned them”. My wife and I were flabbergasted when Cire said (with a straight face) “You can’t return a prescription”.

Well, flabbergasted was an understatement – we both felt the Earth shudder on its axis. Was Cire saying that you couldn’t return something? Did he just have a stroke?

Well, his face wasn’t droopy, and he wasn’t slurring his speech, so I composed my thoughts and said “Prescription medicine is a consumer product like any other – if it’s defective (and possibly even dangerous) OF COURSE YOU CAN RETURN IT! In fact, if a bad batch somehow got out of the factory, the manufacturer would definitely want it returned before someone gets injured by the defective product and sued them” . This, of course, was a valid and logical argument. Yet, Cire countered “but it’s a PRESCRIPTION – they won’t take it back!”

For the first time ever, the All-Time Undisputed Galactic Champions of Returns said that there was something that could not be returned. Say it ain’t so, Joe.

And he was wrong, of course. I personally have returned prescriptions on two separate occasions and for two different reasons. I even talked my Mom (who is the polar opposite of Cire on the subject of returns) into returning an expensive drug that she had an allergic reaction to.

So, what’s my point here?

Well, it suddenly became crystal clear to me that we, as a society, treat health care as some sort of sacred cow, and we allow the world of health care to treat us differently then the rest of our universe. We tolerate unacceptable behavior – things that would have most of us up in arms – that we would never accept from any other aspect of our lives. It would seem that we were all subjects of a strict totalitarian society except that most of us are oblivious to this mistreatment – it never even crosses our Radar for some reason.

It’s as if we’ve all been brainwashed. In a way, we’ve been taught to accept this aberrant behavior from birth, as have our parents and grandparents before them. Everybody just accepts it as ‘the way it has always been’.

But, newly aware, I’m not going to take it anymore – in fact, I’m going to point out just how many bizarre things we blissfully accept in the name of health care.

It’s time to drain the Kool-Aide.

To be continued. Ohhh Yeahhhh.

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