Michael Steele appeared on some newschat today to congratulate the barbarians at the gate. He helpfully informed us that the “47 million uninsured” were really only “more like 18” or so million. Well, yeah.

Was it really six million or only five-point-five?

Let’s set aside the millions, Mike. Let’s talk about one person.

Me.

I am uninsured, Mikey. I am also uninsurable. I have diabetes, which I discovered after I developed a problem walking. That really impacted my job, Mike. And I also discovered I am hypertensive—like tick-tick-tick hypertensive.

Currently I am on a five-dollar medication that sometimes seems to work, because the hundred-dollar medication that actually works is a mite out of my price range. And I wonder how long this will go on. If the doctor comes to require me some tests to determine how to continue to treat my condition, I can’t afford them. A lot of doctors will refuse to treat people who can’t afford blood tests, because they can’t be sure what the medications are now doing to you.

Rush Limbaugh says right now we have the best health care in the world. He’s right; there is no Soviet equivalent. But that health care is in a glass case: you can’t get to it. I’m sure Rush has no problem—he could afford to go through a cancer regimen out-of-pocket, he makes $20 mil a year.

They all tell me under medicine socialista that my health care will be rationed. Dear hearts, it is already rationed. It is not accessible to me. I cannot afford test strips or my finger-gepoken device. And it is difficult for a single middle-aged male to wade onto the Medicare rolls, rest assured.

The laymen tell me, “Well you can go to an emergency room, they can’t refuse treatment.” No, they can’t refuse emergency treatment. Great place to if you need a spear removed. Or even if you have a sore throat. They don’t hand out test strips there either. And they will—even at three in the morning—send a payment office geek down to inquire as to why you have a four-hundred dollar balance on a previous test. Doctors don’t make house calls, but hospital collection agents nearly do. In fact, they are generally more attentive than ER doctors.

I watched my Mom’s last dollar swallowed up by Mammon Memorial Hospital. She had a stroke, then a string of cardiac incidents. I can’t tell you how many nights I wearied away in those waiting rooms. I actually outlined a novel in a hospital lobby one night. Don’t tell MMH: they’ll want a royalty if I ever sell it.

She was treated on decreasing ledges of quality care based on her ability to pay. She was subject to lectures and life-evaluations by cornpone healers and their bagmen (and women).

My own current economic pratfall was—as is all too common—occasioned by the unfolding treatment bills. You need an agent of your own (and perhaps a lawyer) at your side to explain, calculate, spind, and mutilate the minutiae of what your lavishly-rewarded insurer won’t actually pay for. Oh, they have that yearly deductible, but on that casual thyroid test, they pay almost nothing on a surprise thousand dollars. You find out you are not covered when you thought you were. “Didn’t you consult subparagraph b on page 611?”

Yesterday I watched Glenn Beck tremblingly hold up an Internet print-off of a Nazi-era poster explaining the Nazi philosophy of the cost-ratio of treating the infirm. He began, once again, to tear up. “This hand reminds me of my…little daughter…she has…Cerebral Palsy…” Of course. And we know about the Death Panels, who are going to eyeball the cost-ratio of the quick and the dead.

We already have functioning Death Panels, Glenn. They’re called Insurance Companies. They decide who is a cost-risk and who isn’t. They deny treatments; they end lives.

I’m not going to dump it all on the town hall howlers, either. Sure, they have funny accents and talk to Jesus. It’s fair enough for them to have, and express, opinions. And I also thought the way those opinions were expressed would be self-illustrative. “Are you the member of a gang?” Sean Hannity asks a guest “Great American.”

“I’m a born again Christian!” the man who made monkey arms at Senator Spector trumpets. He then starts pulling newspaper clippings out of his pockets and rifling through them. Ai yi yi. Even Hannity looked worried. Cut to the B Roll.

I don’t like the opportunistic Mr. Spector. Magic Bullet Theory indeed. I don’t like Senators in general. But even my pity was moved for Spector when that Born-Again was shambling towards him like a Lovecraftian entity. It is true that politicians need to be yelled at: they need to feel our pain. But it looks like most of us haven’t done any of the yelling. Woody Allen was right: baseball bats are more effective against Nazis than a sharp piece in the Times.

…Feel a little betrayed? The same people who were snickering twenty-minutes ago about “supermajorities” and “filibuster-proof” and “the death of the Republican Party” are now telling us they can’t get the public-option done because of “obstructionist Republicans.”

Wha-aa-aa? Did I miss a midterm election?

No. We have some rats in the bed. We have people who have traded private interests against the public good. You knew where the Republicans stood.

I did get fooled again. I thought the public option was bulletproof. I in no way liked the involvement of the IRS in its “enforcement” and, frankly, my longtime left-winger bud has worked out a better payment plan on his free time as a hobby. But I was tending towards supporting any plan that would give me any health care.

Many of the status quo folks asked, “Do you really believe Obama could get you health care without raising taxes?” Even Obama admitted he would raise taxes on the “most wealthy” to pay for the plan!

Come closer, I have to whisper.

I would be willing to pay more taxes for health care. Shhh!

Yes, I don’t even expect Steven Spielberg to carry me. I would be willing to pay more taxes for health care. It’s worth it to me.

That is the greatest kept secret of the whole debate. It’s a question not a single person has asked (that I’ve heard)!

Would you be willing to pay more taxes to um—live longer, and not live in pain?

Glenn Beck, holding a Nazi poster sadly and invoking euthanasia.

How many people have you helped kill with this killed bill, Glenn?