WASHINGTON, D.C. – We watched the President’s address of the nation, Congress and Mattville last night and visions, other than those of sugar plum fairies, danced through our heads. Before we delve into those visions/hallucinations, let us get the obvious out of the way:
Now for the visions that danced in our heads. Since we’re sports participants as well as journalists, we’ve had our fair share of injuries and insurance issues. In fact, we’ve had so many that we’ve actually been lucky enough to rub stitches with some pretty big-name doctors, trainers and subsequently, their big-name patients.
Moises Alou is one of those patients. When we tore a hamstring playing rugby a year ago, we went to the same place Moises was doing his physical therapy. Alou, then a $10,000,000.00/year New York Met, was paying less for his rehab than we were. That’s right, he was Worker’s Compensation case, paying the trainer a whopping $79/session. Sure, the PT place could have turned him away but as it was explained to us, turning Moise away would be bad for business. The Catch-22, however, was that the trainer couldn’t give Felipe’s boy special treatment based on what his other clients were paying – yet, he had to give Moises special treatment.
Last week we crossed gauze pads with a HIGHLY TOUTED young pitcher from a VERY WEALTHY local team. The pitcher had a vascular problem and needed surgery. Coincidentally, Doc X has been helping a MTM family member for years. Doc X is also a fan of MTM and one of the better human beings we’ve ever met. Anyway, Doc X was miffed/amazed by the amount MLB sent for the intricate and specialized David Cone-like surgery said pitcher needed. Doc X asked us to guess the amount invoiced and the amount paid. We guessed a low $25K. Doc X nodded and said that was realistic but that the submitted bill was for $15K. We guessed MLB sent $12K. After laughing, Doc X showed us the check from one of the world’swealthiest organizations on behalf of one of the planet’s richest teams. It was for $1,000.00.
Ladies and Germs, if star athletes don’t pay at least as much as Joan Q. Fan for insurance, procedures and peace of mind, we will never fix our system. Was Moises Alou’s injury suffered while on the job? Yes. Should he have been a Worker’s Comp case? Heck no.
Stay tuned… Meanwhile, please check out our new videos with Different Matt, chime in below and look for Sam’s-A-Fan, tomorrow.
P.S… Replacement Matt wants everyone to know that the USA beat Trinibad/Tabasco in soccer, putting them within one win of their 6th consecutive World Cup. Yawn. Oh, and the score was??? Drum roll, please.. 1-0. Wow. Joe Biden was good enough to relay the result, below.
