New York, NY 3:30 AM
The Mercedes 500 glides up the ramp from the underground garage onto Park Avenue. The driver, silver-haired, in his mid 80s, enjoys the feel of the powerful car and wonders why he doesn’t drive it more often rather than having his driver behind the wheel. He looked over to remind himself that he had brought the attache case.
Overhead lights gleam off the polished exterior but the darkly smoked glass keeps the exterior dark and impenetrable. Anyone who noticed might wonder why the immaculate car has mud covering the license plate.
He turns north, makes a left heading west on 97th street. As he passes Madison he glances to his right and sees the perpetual lines outside the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and — he remembers — the Central Park West Community Clinic.
The federal government had taken over half the Mount Sinai facility when enrollment plummeted around 2013. Smart American kids had begun to shun medicine early in the 21st century when lawsuits soared and government control of their ability to earn money made the 10-plus year, more than quarter-million dollar investment in education not worth the effort to most of them.
Many of the teaching hospitals, especially at the great universities, had become federal facilities. They needed to, all the student loans were controlled by Washington and, really, how many parents could come up with the kind of money it took for a child to become a doctor?
Now there just weren’t enough doctors to treat everyone. He remembered the headlines when doctors started retiring, closing their practices and walking away from medicine. Around 2011, if his memory was correct.
At first the lines had started forming around 6 in the morning hoping to cut the wait after the 8 AM clinic opening. Then you had to get there by 3 AM if you didn’t want a 10-hour wait. Eventually, many just decided it wasn’t serious enough to bother and still the lines grew. He remembered when the local TV station had interviewed people who had been in line for over 36 hours…camping out. The clinic had brought in portable toilet facilities because human waste in the streets wasn’t quite the environment they wanted for their hospital.
The doctors and nurses had done the best they could, working 10 and 12 hours shifts, trying to examine, diagnose and treat as many people as they could. But, hell, there had been 30 millions more people with health insurance than the year before.
Eventually, they burned out and got out. The government started paying the entire college and medical school tuition for anyone willing to work in a community health facility. That had worked for a few years but the new crop soon were exhausted so the government turned overseas offering tuition, room, board and citizenship to anyone willing to serve for 10 years.
Enrollment boomed — and so did the drop out rate. The best and brightest weren’t interested and the standards continually dropped. Today, you were lucky if you could find a nurse in her late 60s who knew what she was doing for a simple injection. Soon she’d be gone as she neared the age of 72 and would be eligible for her Social Security benefits.
He entered Central Park taking the 97th Street Transverse, skirting the northern edge of the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. What had it been called before? He continued west, cut south to 96th Street, got on the Henry Hudson Parkway northbound, crossed under the access roads to the George Washington Bridge.
He had the exact change ready for the toll booth. He’d been warned not to use his automated toll payer or even to be seen by an attendant. Entering Westchester County, he took the Yonkers Avenue exit made a left and another. His destination was at the end of the dead-end street.
It looked like any other manse in the well-heeled neighborhood except it was gated. Pulling up he entered the code they’d given him, a code that could only be used once, waited as the gate swung open and pulled up to the front steps.
Almost immediately a neatly dressed bruiser of a guy came out, walked around to the driver’s side and asked, “Mr. M?” He noticed the gun peeking out from the jacket, nodded and was relieved when the man opened the door for him. “Leave your keys sir and we’ll take your luggage up to your room. Everything will be there before you’re done checking in. Don’t forget your case,” he said, nodding to the passenger seat.
As he mounted the steps the door was opened by what seemed the first man’s twin. Probably also armed, he thought. He was directed to the admissions desk where a nurse waited. It wasn’t quite 5 AM and the place was alive, ready to handle the select few who could afford the best in medical care.
She handed him the forms, indicated where to sign, pointed discreetly to the cost and sat back waiting. He snapped open the case, turned it to face her. She nodded, rang a bell and another nurse appeared to take him to his room and prep him for the procedure. He was confident it would be counted before they ever began his operation but it was all there…all $110,000.
It was a lot of money, probably about 50 percent more than it should have been but what could he do. He’d been turned down by the government’s review panel. If he wanted to live to see his granddaughter married he needed the operation and the intensive follow-up treatments. So he’d made the decision, sold the necessary stocks and bonds and accumulated the cash.
The doctors here — and he was sure at the 60 or so other facilities around the country — were among the best in the country. They’d gone “underground” in 2014 when they’d “retired” and virtually disappeared off the grid……………
Prophesy or fiction? You decide.
