“Fifteen billion clams a day spent on healthcare, dude?!?”
“That’s whut it sez there, yeah? An’ it don’ even count tha fer-profit stuff.”
“An’ it ain’t enuff?!?”
“Not tha way ya hear peeps bitch an’ moan ’bout it. An’ that wuz b’fore tha coronavirus outbreak.”
“Yeesh! Holy shitstorm, Batman! Y’got peeps dyin’ all ovah tha place now!”
“Yeah? Look again.”
“Look where … whut? We’re still adding two hundred grand ta tha population ever’ day even wit’ tha coronavirus thingy??”
“Coronavirus gonna havta get a whole lot worse ta make much a a dent in that number.”
“Could happen, dude. Howcum wit’ all this bread bein’ spent we ain’t got this corralled yet?”
“Takes time an’ more money ta deal wit’ sumthin’ new, dude. B’sides. Pharma companies don’ make no money workin’ on stuff that’ll actually cure ya. Been the case fer decades, an’ they ain’t been shy ’bout sayin’ so. Why d’ya think we got Viagra? So it’s not like we’s really set up ta deal.”
“So what’s tha point a all this, dude? Ta work it so’s we all live, an’ all live long enuff ta have, like, lost it, afore we die?”
“Spendin’ a lot more money in tha process.”
“While ignorin’ things like coronaviruses that could, like, cut us all off at tha nuts?”
“That would only be half a us, dude.”
“Dude?”
“Yeah?”
“Shaddap. It cain’t last, dude! Who’s gonna pay fer all this?”
“Damned if’n I know, dude. Tha asks keep growin’, an so do tha costs, and sure as hell ain’t nobody paying taxes an’ fees while they’s in lockdown ’cause a COVID-19. I sapose ya c’ld make tha physicians an’ nurses inta slaves, an’ save sum bread that way.”
“Like they do in Cuba?”
“Even Cuba’s had ta give their health care pros a raise, dude, in order ta keep havin’ any.”
“Smh, dude. Mebbe this Aragorn’s gotta point. Yer time comes, go, an’ stop shellin’ out, ‘r makin’ peeps shell out fer ya, fer no reason. Hey! Did they have antibiotics in tha Lord a tha Rings?”
“Don’ think so.”
“An’ did ennybody get sick in Middle Earth? It’s not like all a what they did wuz ‘zactly clean, ‘r proper social distancin’.”
“They had magic, dude. ‘Sick’ don’ sell books. Neither do BO, ‘r latrines, ‘r sanitary pads.”
“Kinda too bad. I mean, they coulda dealt wit’ this Sauron badass, like, a whole diff’rent way. An’ prob’ly cheaper an’ wit’ less stress. Saruman too. Make ’em assemble their armies, wallowed tagether in their filth – we are talkin’ orcs here, yeah, an’ they wuz always throwin’ their refuse all over ever’place – an’ wait fer a plague ta wipe ’em out. Yeah? It’d be more, like, real.”
“Dude?”
“What?”
“You idiot! Scroll up an’ down this page. Read.”
“OK. So?”
“What tha fuck diff’ does ‘real’ make ta nobody no more, dude?!?”
“Dude.”
******