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Healthcare
Sunbeams
April 2019When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality.
The Cure For Racism Is Cancer
This strange country of cancer, it turns out, is the true democracy — one more real than the nation that lies outside these walls and more authentic than the lofty statements of politicians; a democracy more incontrovertible than platitudes or aspiration.
In the country of cancer everyone is simultaneously a have and a have-not. In this land no citizens are protected by property, job description, prestige, and pretensions; they are not even protected by their prejudices. Neither money nor education, greed nor ambition, can alter the facts. You are all simply cancer citizens, bargaining for more life.
September 2018In The Dermatologist’s Office, Again
The cancer he wanted / to cut out of my back / somehow disappeared / in the month / since the biopsy.
July 2018The End Of Insurance?
Andrew Coates On Fixing Our Broken Healthcare System
It’s appalling that one person’s illness would be an opportunity for another to make money. The care of human beings should not be a commodity.
March 2018
The World Of Love
If you are going to deal with the issue of health in the modern world, you are going to have to deal with much absurdity.
March 2018
March 2018
Featuring Ralph Nader, Katy Butler, Krista Bremer, and more.
March 2018Sunbeams
March 2018Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Illness And Literature
In those cold rooms with the blue plastic chairs, / sometimes the human condition / is an old Texas redneck with a brushy mustache / reading a Louis L’Amour novel / while waiting for his chemotherapy
February 2018Tides
Then ahead I saw a small, dark shape perched on the sand, well back from the water. As I drew closer, the shape revealed itself to be a bird, sitting back on its tail feathers. It was vaguely penguin-like, about eighteen inches tall, with black back and head, white breast and cheeks.
October 2017
Dizzy
Eleven years ago I woke up to find the room spinning. In the soft blue-gray light of morning, the walls folded and slid and picked up speed. I pressed my body hard against the mattress, frantically searching for something to hold on to, but everything was moving with me.
July 2017
