Guest Op Ed: Health Care For Everyone

From time to time, The Awl offers its space to normal, everyday people with a perspective on national issues. Today, we're pleased to once again present you with Walt Fruttinger, an Applebee's franchisee who has some incisive thoughts about health care.

I've been unable (thus far) to secure the opportunity to have Louisville Cardinals coach Rick Pitino make love to a woman in my Applebee's franchise after hours, but am still thankful to The Awl for giving me a forum to communicate my ideas. As a Montana-based entrepreneur, you must know that good ideas and brilliant notions come to me in convulsive waves and shudders. So here's some new stuff about health insurance.

With all the hubbub about health care reform, it's surprising that no one's come forward thus far with a viable third option. Those against making health care available and affordable for everyone are proud that they're able to pay their own way, and those who would get cheap or free health care are deservedly excited that they would no longer have to go without. But as my family's premiums spiraled out of control, it dawned on me that neither side had given much thought to the old "teach a man to fish" adage. With so much information available these days, who needs health care reform when we can and should all just do it ourselves?

Now I know what you're thinking. What about the shelter animals? Won't the ambitious folks amongst us start claiming them and-with one eye on our laptop screens, and another on our new standard poodle-performing unnecessary appendectomies and tracheotomies on them, just to get our chops in the medical arena? Won't that be sad? You're also concerned that you don't have a degree to practice medicine, and maybe don't own a light fixture with sufficient wattage to see well enough to perform surgery. Well, as with Emperor Obama's plan, there are still some loose ends to be tweaked. But DIY health care is not undoable. Here's a few ways to game the system while the rest of society waits for some congressional pulp jockeys to wrestle with 917 pages of pork:

• Thrift stores often sell used knee and elbow braces, as well as second-hand crutches for very cheap. Buy these things and start using them beforeyou're afflicted with the ailments for which they're made. Now that's insurance! (And don't be a crutch snob, wooden ones provide an equal amount of mobility as their more fancy aluminum counterparts). Also-knee braces sometimes come in exciting, fashionable colors like turquoise, and when worn on the outside, of, say, denim trousers, you may strike up a conversation with a new friend (and maybe fuck them in my restaurant after hours, while I watch).

• Stretch your dollars by dissolving all family medicines into a large pitcher of room-temperature water and simply have everyone in the household take a Dixie-size cupful each day. It's like double, or even triple the whammy against ailments like high cholesterol, schizophrenia, erectile dysfunction and acne. And if you don't currently have any prescriptions, get your drinking water tested to learn which medicines may already be in it. And then if you find that the quantities of medicines that you think you should be taking is rather low-consider moving to a watershed area downstream from a giant hospital or nursing home, and you will probably feel fine again at some point.

• If you're obese, don't skateboard.

• High blood pressure needn't be combated with expensive medicines and the opinions of so-called experts who are often in the pockets of Big Pharma, anyway. The time we spend popping wonder pills in the name of "getting better" could be better used taking a look at the causality. Do you eat too much salt, or are you just really angry? In either case, spending twenty minutes a day sitting in an easy chair next to a small brightly colored songbird might provide a workable solution.

• One residential D.I.Y. garage could be established per city block as a surgical zone, with a blood supply (kept in a mini fridge) and a neighbor/buddy operating system, a la "I give you dental veneers, you get rid of my intestinal blockage." Many tools you use for lawn work and fixing vehicles can be used on the human body for both the purposes of medicine and pleasure. And as for everything else? I'm sorry, but when there's nearly 5,000 stethoscopes for sale on eBay, as well as over 5 sets of non-sterile tongue depressors, I think that qualifies as a hint to get off your keister and start figuring this shit out on your own, you motherfucking babies.

• If you're an adult, your organs are pretty large, so there's more room for slip ups. Also, there are over 103,000 surgery videos on YouTube. And if you're a strict Constitutionalist, consider that Dutch traders (might have) used coffee as anesthesia, and there was also ether as well as booze, all of which are still readily available.

• Try eating more apples. Also, you can lose weight by saying that you're allergic to mayonnaise. Make a commitment to it, and people will accommodate you. In many cases, you can get discounts at restaurants. When handed the check, a gentle reminder, "but I didn't get mayo on that," will often knock at least .25 cents off your bill. Don't try this at my Bozeman area Applebee's though, because I will ring your bell like a taco shell.

• Speaking of which, local submarine sandwich shops discard extra bread at the end of the day. So buy a few loaves on the cheap. When split in half and allowed to harden, they-along with standard packing twine -can serve as a biodegradable tourniquet that's especially effective on toddlers (who may have been conceived at my restaurant after hours, while I watched).

Follow these tips and conduct web searches to learn others and soon the pharmaceutical companies, lawmakers and lobbyists will recognize the power we wield and start to bend oppressive medical rules and requirements in our favor, and also, much like those green-tech freaks who sell power back to the grid, we may soon find ourselves getting compensated for our talents.