The doctor’s office. The test results. The word.
Terminal.
Months to live. Maybe weeks. The world collapses. The plans evaporate. The future becomes a countdown.
But there’s no time to grieve. There’s no time to process. There’s no time to be with family. There’s no time to see the world. Because the first thought isn’t “how do I spend my last days?” The first thought is “how do I keep my insurance?”
Not a statistic. A person. Someone who worked for 30 years. Showed up every day, paid their taxes, did everything right. Played by every rule.
It’s someone who had dreams: The Grand Canyon. The fishing cabin in Montana. The garden they never got to plant. The grandchild due in six months. The novel they’ve wanted to write since they were 25.
It’s someone who now sits at a desk instead of a hospice bed. Someone who clocks in on Monday because the chemo is on Wednesday and the chemo is tied to the job. Someone who drags themselves to the office because the infusion center only takes their insurance. Someone who sits through a performance review while their body is physically shutting down.
Someone who apologizes for missing a deadline… while they, are missing their goddamn life.
The metallic taste of chemo on the tongue during the morning standup. The sweat soaking through the dress shirt while the boss talks about Q3 projections. The bathroom stall where they dry heave between Zoom calls. The coworkers who pretend not to hear. The body breaking down while the spreadsheet gives no fucks.
The partner who watches them walk out the door when they should be staying home. The children who lose their parent one day at a time. The grief that starts before the death. The anger that has nowhere to go. The helplessness of watching someone you love choose between their job and their last days.
The spouse who will inherit the medical debt. The children who will lose their parent and then open the mail to find bills for the dying. The family that buries their loved one and then spends years paying for the funeral.
Healthcare is tied to employment. Not by accident, but by design.
WWII wage controls. Tax incentives. Corporate lobbying. The system was built to keep you working. The system was built to keep you dependent. The system was built to extract your labor until the very last breath.
The “solutions” they hand you are just more chains. COBRA costs $700-800 a month. On no income. While dying. FMLA is unpaid. Only 12 weeks. Doesn’t protect your job if you can’t come back. Disability takes months to qualify. The waiting period is longer than the prognosis…
Medicaid requires you to be poor enough to die.
That’s not a choice.
That’s a hostage situation.
That’s a gun to your head disguised as a benefit package. “Do what we say or die.” That’s not freedom. That’s a threat.
The wealthy don’t have this problem…
They have savings. They have private insurance. They have choices. They get to die in comfort. They get to see the Grand Canyon. They get to be with their families. They get to choose how they spend their last days.
The poor die at their desks. The poor die in the bathroom stall. The poor die with a timesheet in one hand and a prescription in the other. The poor die begging GoFundMe strangers for the money to pay for their own death. The indignity of it. The humiliation of it. The “share this link” culture that replaces healthcare with charity.
A country that would rather you beg strangers on the internet than provide you the basic human dignity of a peaceful death.
In the UK, you don’t work while dying. The NHS covers you. In Canada, you don’t work while dying. Medicare covers you. In Germany, France, Japan, Australia, every other developed nation, you get to die with dignity. You get to spend your last days with your family. You get to choose how you die.
Only in America do you die at your desk.
Only in America is your right to treatment contingent on your fucking productivity.
Whatever you believe about death, the last days are sacred. They’re for the dying and the living. They’re for the goodbye. They’re for the closure. They’re not for the quarterly earnings report.
The system steals the sacred. The system steals the goodbye. The system steals the last words and replaces them with a timesheet. The system steals the last days and replaces them with a shift. The system steals the death and replaces it with a performance metric.
“Devoted employee.”
Not “loved parent.” Not “aspiring traveler.” Not “dreamer.”
“Devoted employee.”
The final reduction of a human to a worker. The final erasure of everything they were besides their labor. The final insult. The final theft.
Days later… Maybe a week. The desk is cleared. The chair is filled. The position is posted. The interviews are scheduled. The new hire starts. The machine keeps turning.
Thirty years.
Thirty years of showing up.
Thirty years of doing everything right.
Thirty years of playing by every rule.
And the desk is cleared in an afternoon. The nameplate is replaced. The email is deactivated. The parking spot is reassigned.
The company sends flowers. Maybe. A card. Maybe. A brief mention in the all-hands meeting. “Our thoughts are with the family.” Then the meeting moves on. The quarterly numbers are reviewed. The new targets are set. The work continues.
The person who died at their desk is a line item. A vacancy. A position to be filled. A budget allocation. A headcount. The machine that chains the dying to their desks is the same machine that denies the living healthcare. The same machine that lets the poor die in the emergency room waiting for care they can’t afford. The same machine that bankrupts families for the crime of getting sick. The same machine that decides who lives and who dies based on the size of their bank account. The machine doesn’t mourn. The machine doesn’t remember. The machine doesn’t care. The machine just keeps running.
And the person who replaces them? They’ll get the same insurance. The same trap. The same desk. The same chair. The same system that worked their predecessor to death will work them to death too. The cycle continues. The machine keeps turning. The bodies keep piling up.
The person who worked for 30 years. The person who did everything right. The person who played by every rule. The person who got the diagnosis. The person who should be seeing the Grand Canyon. The person who should be holding their grandchild. The person who should be saying goodbye.
The person who is sitting at a desk instead.
This is why a country can’t be run like a business.
Because the business doesn’t care about your last days. The business cares only about your last dollar.
And the fucking dying still have to keep clocking in.
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“The body breaking down while the spreadsheet gives no fucks.”
“Only in America is your right to treatment contingent on your fucking productivity.”
“And the fucking dying still have to keep clocking in.”
Nice…if commenters cuss like this their posts get snuffed.
I’m curious, do any children read the Vanguard?
Using children as an excuse to crack down on free speech.
Pathetic. Buck up. Certainly you’re not so much of a Puritan that you can’t take some strong language.
If not, oh well. Read something else.
And, yeah. All those “children” reading the Vanguard. If they are intellectually capable enough to read something like this, I’m sure they are of an age that reading the f word will not irrevocably traumatize them.
This level of pearl clutching is pretty ridiculous.
Plus, you’ve completely ignored the substance of the post. Which was probably the point.
You know you always have the option to shut your mouth and not opine on every single post, right? You seem to not understand that.
“You know you always have the option to shut your mouth and not opine on every single post, right? You seem to not understand that.”
You should also know that you always have the option of not reading my comments, right?
But I get it, you can’t help yourself because you seem to be captivated by me. 😘
You really should take your comedy show on the road.
I hope Matt writes more naughty words to flip your wig.