Updated: 9:23 p.m. Saturday, April 7, 2012
Published: 8:56 p.m. Saturday, April 7, 2012
Welcome to the health care games.
And may the odds that you get coverage be ever in your favor.
In case you haven't been keeping up with your children's reading list lately, that line about your odds is a takeoff on "The Hunger Games," a madly popular book that has been turned into a madly popular movie. "The Hunger Games" tells the story of a country of the future called Panem, where the government cares not a lick about its subjects.
In fact, Panem cares so little about its subjects that to keep them from acting up, it holds an annual event called the Hunger Games in which young people fight to the death. The last child standing wins.
So the line repeated often by the evil fops who inhabit Washington — I mean Panem's capital — is this: May the odds be ever in your favor.
Sorry about that. I'm getting my capitals swapped out here in my head.
Anyway, back here in real life, the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether you Americans out there who aren't fortunate enough to have health insurance should be able to get it under the new Obamacare law.
I feel justified in comparing the U.S. to Panem because Panem and the U.S. are the only two industrialized countries in the Western world that don't have universal health insurance for their citizens.
OK, so Panem doesn't exist. You got me there. Still, according to CNN Money, in 2010 49.9 million Americans didn't have health insurance. And with a population of 313,302,001 in this country, that means that one of every 6.27 Americans doesn't have health insurance.
Under Obamacare, however, all Americans would be required to buy coverage, the theory being that if everybody buys it, rates drop, and health care gets to the point where you don't have to sell your house to spend three days in the hospital.
The knot in the stethoscope, however, is the justices of the Panem — make that the U.S. — Supreme Court. It's looking as if the robed ones might vote down Obamacare on the grounds that Congress doesn't have the right to make you buy anything, whether it's for your own good or not.
And why should they vote for health insurance anyway? Heck, every time Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia bends over and coughs, you pick up the tab. In fact, Scalia has even gone so far as to compare health insurance to shopping for broccoli. Apparently he doesn't get into town much. Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts compared health insurance to cellphones. Here's their logic: If Congress can make you buy health care insurance, what's to keep them from making you buy an iPhone or an eggplant?
Sounds to me like these clowns might be more concerned about your vegetable and app rights than whether you can afford to get your kid's tonsils yanked. That's the good thing about an appointed position, right? You don't even have to fake compassion. Which should make you Panem tributes — I mean, you American citizens — who don't have health insurance a bit antsy.
On the other hand, the tributes who fight to the death in the Hunger Games probably don't have health insurance either.
In the "Hunger Games" story, a young gal named Katniss Everdeen turns out to be the hero. Not only does she manage to survive in the Health — I mean, the Hunger — Games, but she also shows the citizens of Panem that they're being hosed by their government.
Here's my question: Where is Katniss Everdeen when we really need her?
I haven't read the final book of the trilogy to find out if the people of Panem ever get health insurance. What I'm really wondering, though, is whether the revolt starts when the Supreme Court makes its ruling.
May the odds be ever in your favor. Now shut up, and eat your broccoli.
John Kelso's column appears on Sundays. Contact him at 445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com
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