Ask a Doctor About the Coverage Story

Dear Ask a Doctor,

I'm a seven year-old with 19th Century Urchins Wasting Away Disease. Mommy says my not getting autism because I wasn't vaccinated against 19th Century Urchins Wasting Away Disease was totally worth it. Daddy doesn't think so. I don't have the energy to stop them yelling, but I also don't have the energy to get upset about it, so that's good, I guess.

Anywhosiewhatsits, the medicine that stabilizes my wasting away and keeps me alive costs a million gabillion dollars a dose. Serious. The only reason I've made it this far is because I want to live long enough to get a pony. O-kay, that's not the only reason. Daddy says the Affordagable - the Affrodabble - the Aggafrodo - the AFMPBSNPCA means we don't have to pay a million gabillion dollars for my medicine. The gov'ment takes care of it.

Mommy says the Reduhblicans are trying to change the Agorafull - the AFMPBSNPCA so that it doesn't apply to me any more. She says they want to let health 'surers call what I have a p'existing condition and not pay for my medicine.

Ask a Doctor, why do the mean old Reduhblicans want to kill me?

Tina Lolocadenko, type O Negative (the most melancholy of blood types)

Dear Curious Patient,

You seem to know an awful lot about the politics of your situation for a seven year-old. Are you sure you are, in fact, a seven year old? Or are you actually an adult troll who is attempting to lure me into an argument about health care in order to harangue me with spurious statements, dubious "facts" and personal invective that involves escalating threats of violence?

I'm NOT being a 'dult troll! I'm precocious! Why are you being so mean to me?

Tina Lolocadenko, type O Negative (we try harder)

Dear Curious Patient,

Sorry, I...thought you were somebody else.

Yes, Reduhblican efforts to kill the Affordable For More People But Still Nowhere Near Perfect Care Act is the Michael Meyerlanskeyglubs of legislation. You think it's dead - a reasonable assumption considering you've cut off its head, lit its headless body on fire and ejected the whole mess into the vacuum of space - but then it returns to terrorize libidinous teenagers in a sequel about the small town with criminally oblivious adults that nobody asked for but is as inevitable to hit movie screens as the sun rising in the we -

Sorry. We stayed up late to binge watch horror movies last night. Apt, but not appropriate.

The good news is that the third Reduhblican attempt to kill the AFMPBSNPCA appears to be sucking on the vacuum of space: at least three of their Senators are opposed to the latest version, and several others are "feeling very squidgy" about it. The votes just aren't there. The gooder news is that if the bill doesn't pass the Senate by Saturday, it will need 60 votes to pass rather than 50. This doesn't mean it won't be resurrected again in the future, it just means that it will have even less narrative logic than it has had in the past.

The bad news is that the McDruhitmumpf administration plans on cutting the hours in which people can sign up for coverage under the Act, and they won't tell anybody when those times actually are. So, if you need health insurance, you have to randomly go to the Web site to apply and hope you're there at the right time. The badder news is that the Reduhblicans may try to take a trillion dollars out of the health care system in their next budget.

So, I'm going to die after all?

Tina Lolocadenko, type O Negative (but we need to stay positive in these trying times)

Dear Curious Patient

Don't let it get you down. We're all going to die eventually.

Ask a Doctor is a consortium of medical professionals who would rather not be personally identified as this is just a side gig and they don't take it especially seriously, so why should you? If you have a question of a medical nature, talk to your family physician about it! If that is not possible - and you're willing to take what you get - send your query to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Because, as they wisely say in Brataslava, what doesn't kill you...