Just like your car stops making that knocking sound as soon as you drive it to the mechanic, so my cold started clearing up as soon as I went to the Doctor. I still got a prescription for some killer cough medicine, which knocked me out cold on the couch this afternoon. Bliss.
Now that the prospect of losing medical insurance looms large, I booked a full physical. So I was poked and prodded and stuck with needles and weighed and measured and offered all sorts of goodies, like Chantix to quit smoking. This is the great part of the American healthcare system - that you can get some reeeeeeally good drugs.
But, as I have now lost my job, which had excellent health insurance, I am no longer in the little fluffy coccoon where you get the benefit of the best of American healthcare. As I sat in the waiting room - saving the other people from my germs by sporting a mask that made me look like Donald Duck - I saw two people come in who don't have my level of cover.
The first was a young man who struggled to pay an $18 copay. He had some cash, and put $3 on a debit card. He was clearly uncomfortable, embarrassed in front of the overly perky Receptionist.
The second was an older woman who was told that neither Medicare nor her AARP insurance covered the procedure she was there for. She was clearly annoyed and upset.
And I am about to join these ranks.
This really isn't the best way to get success and performance out of the population of the US.
I am going try and use this as another incentive to get a new job - quickly.
Being uninsured is not an option.
The Doctor also told me about a book that takes a different approach to quitting smoking - the Easyway Method by Alan Carr.
Apparently he talks about seeing becoming non-smoker as a new freedom, rather than something that has to be given up or overcome.
He also says that the first cigarette you want to have after quitting shouldn't just be seen as "one little slip" because, as soon as you smoke it, you become a smoker again. So the first cigarette is:
- All the bad health effects you'll have for the rest of your life
- The money you'll spend on cigarettes the rest of your life.
It's a good way to look at things.