On Sunday night, I felt unusually tired, had a small coughing fit, and went to bed early. On Monday morning, I woke up with a full fledged case of fire throat. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s where whenever you swallow, it feels like you’re trying to choke glass down. It came with a couple of its bffs, body aches and fever, rendering me useless for a good couple days. I am so grateful at times like this that I have a partner, insurance and good childcare, or else I really don’t know what I’d have done.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to work on Museletter for a few days. I also had a couple videos I’d started editing, and those weren’t able to be finished, either. (Yes, one is the SNL 40th anniversary after party video featuring never before seen original footage of THE Taylor Swift, Prince, Paul McCartney and Jimmy Fallon performing at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC, for paid subscribers only!)
Being sick sucks. But what do comedians do when they get sick? They say laughter is the best medicine, and it’s a decent placebo, but it only goes so far.
Hopefully, all the comedians who are reading this are making enough money that they are able to buy a doctor at the doctor store whenever they need medical help, or they have a partner with a day job that provides family insurance, or they are covered under their parents’ insurance still, or are so poor or disabled that they are covered by medicaid, or are old enough to have medicare.
It is distressing and heartbreaking that being so poor and/or disabled that you’re covered by medicaid is a best case scenario for health insurance in America.
Where does that leave everyone else? That would include people who are at any point above the poverty line and have to self-pay for insurance out of pocket via the market place (out of pocket insurance in the marketplace can be very expensive), people who can’t figure out how to get health insurance (it’s pretty annoyingly difficult to deal with, even if you have all the money in the world, and requires hours of phone calls and paperwork, on a regular basis, in my own experience), people who don’t want to or don’t have the time to deal with the hassle of getting insurance until they slip on a banana peel, and people who are juggling multiple health / insurance issues, among others. How about people who are between insurances, because, say, they were recently laid off? It’s stressful and scary.
I’m curious, and would like some feedback in the comments. Are you a comedian? If so, what kind of insurance do you have? Or do you have insurance at all? What do you do when you get sick? I mean, besides write jokes about it?
Today’s daily inspo:
I’ll be watching Jacqueline Novak’s solo show on Netflix, you? | The New Yorker
OK, I’m listening, and oddly intrigued, Dolph Lundgren… | UPI
Call me 14, but if it’s called Hundreds of Beavers, I’m in | FirstShowing.net
Bye for now, friend.