Dr. John Reizer

Folks, it’s all baloney, and none of it is for your or my benefit!

I’m writing about health insurance today in the good old USA!

Have you ever noticed that health insurance is the only product people buy, hoping that they never have to use it?

Think about that. Nobody buys a lawnmower and says, “Boy, I hope I never have to mow my stupid lawn.”

Nobody buys a refrigerator and prays they never have to refrigerate anything. But health insurance: people spend thousands of dollars a year for the privilege of crossing their fingers and whispering, “Please don’t make me find out what this health insurance policy actually covers.”

Health insurance is fascinating because it’s somehow both incredibly expensive and incredibly confusing. Usually, when something costs a small fortune, it comes with a professionally produced video to help set it up. Health insurance costs a small fortune and comes with a PDF.

Another thing the insurance people have invented is a whole separate vocabulary. You’ve got premiums, deductibles, copays, coinsurance, and out-of-pocket maximums. It’s like they hired a science fiction novelist to write the user manual.

“Before you can enter the Kingdom of Coverage, you must first get by the Sacred Deductible. After that, it’s on to fight the Copay of Destiny. If you haven’t gone bankrupt yet, the mighty Coinsurance Dragon shall torch and incinerate twenty percent of your remaining assets.”

And people nod along in agreement with all this baloney because they’ve given up entirely long ago.

As a former doctor, I was always amused by the deductible scam. That’s where you pay every month for insurance, and then when something happens, they say, “Excellent news! Now you can start paying more money.”

What the hell kind of sense does that even make?

Imagine if, god forbid, your house caught on fire and the fire department arrived and a firefighter met you at your front door holding a clipboard.

“Good evening, Mr. Smith, before we spray any water on your burning house, we’d like to see evidence that you’ve personally extinguished the first half of the fire.”

Then there’s the insurance network. The network sounds like a Masonic secret society.

“Congratulations, your doctor is covered.”

“Wonderful,” you reply.

“Unfortunately, the building where your doctor works is not covered.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” you ask.

“Yes, the doctor is covered, the exam table is covered, the doctor’s stethoscope is covered, but the physical building where everything takes place is not because it’s considered out-of-network.”

Somehow, in America, when dealing with health insurance, you can do everything right and still get a bill that that will cripple you financially speaking for the rest of your life.

You go in for a routine procedure, and six weeks later, a fat envelope arrives in your mailbox. You open the parcel and discover a bill for $843.17 for something called a facility adjustment fee, $582.64 for provider optimization, and $11,000 because the planet Mercury was in retrograde at the time your professional services were rendered.

After you are given CPR, you call customer service.

“Can you explain this charge?”

“No.”

“Can anyone explain this charge?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know it’s correct?”

“Because it says so in the PDF we gave to you when you bought your health insurance policy.”

Oh yes, the PDF! Humanity’s greatest explanations are comprised of digitized print that no one ever bothers to read.

Health insurance companies have elevated paperwork into an art form. Before PDFs, there were warehouses filled with enough health insurance forms and explanations of benefits to cover all of North America.

I used to help my patients fill out insurance forms. And every form asks the same questions differently.

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Are you ill?”

“No!”

“Have you ever been sick?”

“Probably.”

“Would you consider becoming sick in the future?”

“That’s generally how biology works.”

The most amazing thing is how many middle people appear the moment healthcare insurance is involved.

Suddenly,  you need a doctor to see a specialist. The specialist needs the insurer’s authorization. The insurer needs documentation from the doctor. The documentation needs to be reviewed by a supervisor. The supervisor needs a supervisor. The other supervisor needs a committee. The committee needs a meeting.

At some point your illness starts aging faster than you do.

And then there’s the Explanation of Benefits.

What a wonderful piece of writing that thing is. An Explanation of Benefits is a document specifically designed not to explain benefits. It’s lines and lines of codes, abbreviations, and mysterious numbers that tell you why your bill wasn’t paid.

At the top it says, “THIS IS NOT A BILL.”

The whole system feels like it was designed by people who are trying to sneak something by you. Guess what? They are!

Every year, millions of Americans are forced to become amateur insurance scholars.

People who couldn’t tell you where Belgium is can explain the difference between a PPO, an HMO, an HSA, an FSA, and a mystery acronym that only appears during leap years.

That’s the hidden goal of the health insurance system: to turn ordinary citizens into reluctant bureaucrats.

Nobody grows up saying, “When I get older, I want to spend Tuesday afternoon arguing with a customer-service representative about procedural billing codes.”

But here you are, doing just that. The miracle of all this isn’t that people understand health insurance. The miracle is that after trying to understand it, they still have enough sanity left to schedule another appointment with a doctor.

Folks, it’s all baloney, and none of it is for your or my benefit!

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Science fiction has traditionally been a way for writers to discuss difficult ideas safely. It has allowed authors to examine dangerous possibilities before they become reality. Sometimes fiction entertains us, sometimes it warns us, and sometimes it says the necessary things that otherwise couldn’t be said.

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The goal of my writing is twofold: to entertain while also encouraging people to think more deeply about the systems shaping human life behind the scenes.

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Sometimes fiction is not an escape from reality, but rather the only way to talk about it.

–John Reizer

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Critical Reviews

“Rachel Alig is terrific as Donna while Justin Ray as Clyde also manages to impress. Combining witty commentary with a constant threat to life, script writers Palo and Reizer develop a narrative that is funny and charming while ensuring that none of the thrill and danger is lost in the process.”

– INDIE WRAP MAGAZINE

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“Drama, thrills, comedy and so much more: Directors Andrew Arguello and MJ Palo’s Target List has all the fixings of a great movie. Combining a fantastic cast with the witty writing of MJ Palo and John Reizer, whichever way you flip this film, it lands on its feet with feline agility.”

– INDY REVIEWS

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“The script by Palo with John Reizer, for the most part, rides that perfect balance between its more dramatic moments and perfectly placed moments of humor that never distract. While they’re probably not going to get invited to any big pharma conventions anytime soon, Reizer and Palo have a point, and they make it beautifully.”

“Target List is a great view for anyone who wants a compelling and suspenseful flick with a message that matters.”

– RICHARD PROPES – THE INDEPENDENT CRITIC

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“Target List had me on the edge of my seat throughout. Not the least because of its believability!“

GARETH ICKE – DIRECTOR OF THE DAVID ICKE WEBSITE

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Our film addresses a well-known conspiracy theory within modern medicine that subscribes to the idea that the pharmaceutical industry is willing to hold back and even destroy healthcare inventions and discoveries that might help humanity have a better expression of health for the pursuit of monetary gain.

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Inventing a cancer cure was their first mistake!

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