37
Americans were astonished. Television sets all over America were frozen on as Americans witnessed the developing catastrophe in Washington. The fact that thousands of people were either dead, trapped, or dying in the rubble of this major league baseball stadium riveted every man, woman, and child. In addition, more than one billion viewers overseas were glued to their sets as the mayhem was being directly and instantly broadcast through satellite to their own nations.
Several times during the evening, spokesmen for various government departments, grants foundations, and news media consultants stepped in front of the cameras to make statements concerning the crisis.
One of the spokesmen from a major public opinion agency appeared on three networks complaining that too little was being done to stop people who were victims of Obama Care from carrying out revenge killings upon the entire population.
Bruno Crane, spokesman for the National Opinion Institute of Higher Learning reported, “These new serial murderers are angry as hell, because their loved ones have been denied what used to be high levels of medical care. Now, no matter if they are poor or if they are in the higher income brackets, they are being regularly denied life-saving procedures. All of it is being done in the name of government efficiency. The government and insurance companies both claim that the national averages for survivors of heart disease, cancer, and other dreadful diseases is exactly the same now as before, but that significant savings for useless procedures that promised to prolong life but really hadn’t made any differences in patient longevity have been achieved, making the Obama Care program more affordable to the insurance companies, the people, and the government.”
Angela Brie, the spokesperson for the National Association of Insurance Advisory Council, told several news teams, “We are certainly not in the business of shooting from the hip in terms of making rash and heartless decisions about our clients’ health options. Instead, we look at all angles of the situation to determine which approaches have value and which are merely cosmetic. Many physicians seek to provide services for their patients which are in no way pertinent to the curing of a dreadful disease. Instead, too many of these decisions are made at times which cause intolerable suffering to their patients for no good reason. These decisions might be extremely profitable to physicians’ bank accounts but have no chance of curing his patients who simply demand that everything possible be done even if it has no chance of helping them.
“The reality is that some diseases are not fixable. People do reach a situation where their lives will end no matter what we do for them. Trillions of dollars can be wasted providing worthless operations which are simply mental placebos to convince patients that they are being cared for in the best way possible when, in fact, that are merely expensive options that will do the patient absolutely no good whatsoever. I mean, if your loved one will die no matter what your physician offers to do for them, or if an expensive procedure has been shown to be of zero benefit, do you really want to cause that loved one to undergo some draconian medical torture just to pretend there is something that can be done when, in reality, there is nothing available that will help them?
“Sometimes, it is better to accept fate and to address the welfare of the patient in ways that save billions of dollars and allow really effective procedures to be given to those patients who can really be helped.”
“Are you telling us that many procedures given to us in the past were merely for the profit of doctors and hospitals?” Moderator Rex Ortega asked Ms. Brie.
“I don’t want to say they were given merely for profit. In many cases the patients simply demanded things be done which were useless and expensive and which our records show would not add one day to their lives. In the past, billions of dollars were wasted on what I have to call vanity medicine. By vanity medicine, I mean procedures designed to quiet the patient in an attempt to pretend that something effective was being tried, when it was really just wasted money tossed at an incurable problem. Doctors provided these vanity procedures for patients and their families who simply could not let go of their loved ones. What happened much of the time was a bad outcome for the patient who suffered useless and extreme pain at the end of their lives to suit their wives, husbands, sons, daughters, and themselves, then they would have the same result with far less pain if they were told to accept that nothing could be done for them and they should go home and prepare themselves for a painless end where they were not surgically torn to pieces in a painful show of something being done for them which was of no account whatsoever except the horrible pain and expense.”
“What do you think of these people who seek revenge against people like you in the insurance industry, Angela Brie?” Rex Ortega asked.
“Of course, I think that it is understandable for people to express outrage when they think their loved ones have been left to die. But they would have died even if the procedures they wanted had been given to them or not. To a bereaved loved one there is no palliative for the pain of separation which they feel at the death of their friends and relatives,” Angela Brie said.
“Are we too demanding as patients and their relatives when the natural end of life is near, Angela Brie?”
“Absolutely. We have been treated to thousands of unrealistic advertisements developed to enrich pharmaceutical patent holders, hospitals, clinics, and treatment centers which exist for profit producing purposes. These are corporatist cronies who are involved in the medical business, as they refer to it. Businesses are all about marketing, profitability, and continued growth. Anything that inhibits their natural inclination to increase their revenue base will always be opposed by them, and that is a large part of our perceptual problem in this regard. In addition, we had years of emergency room programs on television in which we were treated to Dr. House, Dr. Welby, and emergency rooms where outrageous scenes were developed concerning treatments that we can receive but which either never existed or were created merely to fulfill a fictional plot line, Mr. Ortega. All of these things have exacerbated public perceptions and made matters far worse than they ever needed to be.”
“So, Ms Brie, I think what you are saying is that we have been handed a fictional pig in a poke, that we have been systemically mis-educated about medical options until we have no realistic ideas about the realities of medical care.”
“Yes, Mr. Ortega. We have literally been entertained into believing that there is far more that can be done, when in reality that was only a dramatic melodrama that we saw on a television show for the benefit of being more fruitfully entertained. But that did not mean that these shows presented a realistic picture of what lies ahead for us close to the termination of our lives. The fact is, we are all going to die, because real options just run out. All of us, you and myself included, cannot escape this fact.”
“Thank you. We have been talking with Angela Brie, an expert on insurance, medical procedures, and realistic outcomes in modern medicine today. My name is Rex Ortega, and this is the World News Network. We will be right back.”
The camera dimmed.
38
Next, Brandy Gise, a spokesman from Homeland Security spoke to the American people, saying, “We are witnessing another great tragedy for our people. Despite all of our billions of dollars spent on stopping these crimes against America, another horrible event has happened. As we watch these victims in Washington’s baseball stadium, we must remind ourselves that there is no end to which people may go to exact revenge upon our innocent citizens for the life tragedies that they themselves or their loved ones claimed to have suffered. This is a problem that has been seen in ancient times right up to today’s modern America. Try as we must to intercept these things before they happen, with three hundred and twenty million people in America and another seven billion people worldwide it is nearly impossible to know everything that is going on inside the private minds of budding terrorists like the ones who have caused so many deaths in Nationals Stadium today. Our president could easily have been injured or killed in th
e falling metal that crashed down upon himself and all of those other innocent citizens attending the Nationals Stadium Memorial Service. He took the risk of being there along with the rest of the mourners. Each of those victims were innocent bystanders in a process in which misguided people seek to exact their revenge upon the innocent.
“We all take our chances. Every time we leave our house for an office, a school, a public or private event, we are all in danger. Fortunately, the chances of being a victim of such a terrorist event is quite small. Still, those who are killed or injured suffer unjustly at the hands of terrorists. That is why your government is constantly on the alert for the small indications that someone somewhere out there might be teetering on the edge of madness and making unwise decisions that should never be contemplated. We must be ever vigilant of all possible dangers for our own protection. Homeland Security is with you at all times trying to keep these things from happening. We apologize to the American people today for having failed to stop what has just occurred, and we pledge to continue our work even harder in the future to make our world as safe as possible. I am Brandy Gise at Homeland Security. Thank you, and God bless those whose loved ones are suffering in this horrible calamity at the stadium.”
“We have just heard from Brandy Gise of Homeland Security. She has warned us all that events in the future are possible and that all of us should be wary, but keep in mind that our individual chances of being a victim of a terrorist act are really statistically small. We are more likely to be hit by lightning than to be hit in a terrorist attack. Still, we are left worrying about it, and it is something we will probably always fear,” said Rex Ortega.
“The stadium is still creaking overhead. All of us in here are in great danger. At any moment more of these unstable pieces of metal can slide away. When they do so, there is a chance, a good chance, mind you, that another huge piece of the stands may collapse trapping workers who have come to extricate hundreds of people entombed under this debris. I have received indications that the situation in the stadium is still very fluid. It might even be more dangerous right now than a few hours ago.
“It is even possible that the terrorists who caused this damage may still be inside Nationals Park. They could be in the crowd behind me. We are all suspects here. Even I am not above suspicion. They are interviewing, frisking, and looking through the personal belongings of these people. No one is being allowed outside the stadium before they go through another series of interviews.
“As you can imagine, no stone is being left unturned to find those responsible. Video cameras and cell phones are being searched for photographs snapped today inside Nationals Park.
“I cannot tell you how exhausted I am. All of these people are also exhausted. The workers in the stadium are even more stressed, because this happened on their watch. Some if not all of them feel responsible for this catastrophe. They take their jobs very seriously. This tragedy is an affront to every stadium employee from the janitors to the engineers, the cooks, vendors, waiters, and ticket takers. All of these workers are devastated. This stadium has been their home since it opened. Many worked for the original stadium before this one replaced it. Their home has been violated, and, from the looks of it, this building is a total wreck now.
“The workers will most likely lose their jobs, because the games will have to be moved elsewhere. This building is totally unsafe. I have received intelligence that it will be torn down and rebuilt. During that time, which may take two years or more, these people will have to find employment elsewhere.
“These stadium workers are mostly poor people who exist on the bottom of the social ladder. Those who work in service jobs here make less than $10,000 per year. Their employment is short-term. Now that term will most likely become even shorter than they expected. I hope that other service establishments who need workers in the near future will remember these workers and offer them a position, because they are going to need work very badly.”
Rex Ortega placed his microphone next to a woman who was dressed in stadium clothes, indicating that she was employed there.
“Mam, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think you will have a job here next week?”
“I don’t think so. But that’s not really important.”
“What do you mean, it’s not important?”
“I mean hundreds of people have lost their lives. Others need to be found and rescued. My job is gone, but what’s important to me and to my fellow workers is to do whatever is necessary right now to save as many people as we can.”
“Thank you so much. May I ask your name?”
“Penny Nobles. I’m from Silver Springs, and I have worked for stadium services more than fifteen years.”
“Will you ever work again in a stadium?”
“Yes. They are not going to scare me or my friends whom I work with away. They’d have to kill me to keep me from my chosen type of work. I love the Nationals and I love the fans. I am here to do what I can for them, in this case to save them. This stadium will be rebuilt. I know that for sure. When it is, I’m going to be right here with the fans, the team, and my co-workers. You can count on that. We will all be back. And, to the families out there who are waiting to find out about their relatives I just want to say that even though I am only a service worker, I will stay here to do whatever I can to find and rescue everyone who is trapped or injured. We care. I want you out there to understand that. These fans are our people, and we love each and every one of them.”
“Thank you, Penny Nobles. Nobly said. And to you out there in America watching this, you heard from Penny how each person, no matter if they are cooks or food servers, feels responsible. Many of them are just as concerned as Penny, and they are staying here to help find every person who has been injured, trapped, or killed by this terrorist event. If you come to any baseball stadium in America, know that even the lowest person on the staff has the same potential for instant heroics to save fans from harm as Penny Nobles. All they want to do is to keep you safe. They really care about you. This is not a job. It is a passion. These men and women who work here for the entire baseball season do it because it is in their blood. The building, the fans, the city, the team, and baseball itself is a large part of their lives, and, God forbid, if this happened to your team, those people in your stadium would also be staying as long as necessary to help each and every one of you.
“I have just received news that all baseball games will remain canceled until further notice. All of today’s games were already suspended due to the original attack several days ago. In addition, tomorrow’s games are canceled out of respect for the people who have been killed and injured today. These games will not begin until the Commissioner of Baseball decides it would be totally safe, respectful, and appropriate to have them start again. We are going live now to the white house.”