thechickensensation.com is available. So is superfuntimepagoda.com. Unbelievably, 100percentass.com is not taken, either. I take a break from blogging and what do I do? I search for domain names. It's more fun than, say, dealing with hospitals.
Ever since Kathryn's weekend hospital getaway, we have been inundated with hospital bills, so many we have considered using them to paper our new bathroom. And these bills are not regular bills either. They are toddler bills.
"I want money!" they scream. "Eleventy billion dollars!"
"I don't have eleventy billion dollars."
"But I want it."
"Here. Have some insurance."
"I don't want insurance. No! No! No!"
Right now, we have a veritable day-care of toddler bills screaming for our money. And if the bills are toddlers, our insurance company is, at best, a surly nanny.
"Now now," she tells the bills. "We talked about this, remember? Eleventy billion dollars is too much money for this. You are only allowed to ask for two thousand, okay? Two thousand dollars is all you can charge for an electroencephalogram. Now, I'll give you a little bit of that two thousand now, and you can get the rest from Kathryn's parents after you take a nap."
"Eleventy billion! Wuaaa!" the next bill we get says.
The system is broken. Hyperbole aside, our emergency visit, not including any extras, not including CAT scans, MRIs, doctors, neurologists, or even the crappy food, was billed at just over $27,000. Twenty-seven thousand dollars. We submitted the bill to insurance who paid out just $2,000 and disallowed the rest. That's $25,000 that our insurance company made go *poof*, about the price of a new, mid-sized, domestic automobile with half a tank of gas. Thank god we have insurance.
There are reportedly some 40-million uninsured Americans out there at any given moment. That's 40 million people who lack their own surly nannies who magically make 90% of their hospital charges go bye-bye. And, just like us, at any given moment, their daughters might choose to go shopping at the Epilepsy Store (your one-stop seizure shop!) and for them, the consequences can go far beyond the medical and deep into the financial. The system is broken.
Which is why it's no surprise that my domain name search showed at least thirty-five registered domains with "health care sucks" in the name.
But thingsthatlooklikepoopbutarenot.com is still out there for the taking. If you hurry.