THIS IS AWESOME! Two-year-old Logan Moore needs a walker to get around but his family didn't know if insurance would cover for one, so his local Home Depot found parts to make it themselves. 🥺❤️ MORE: https://t.co/V0YoW3FHuk pic.twitter.com/8QLHa2a8Mq
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) May 28, 2019
Something seems to be fundamentally broken about the American healthcare system. My other job is in a drugstore, where we routinely field questions from patients attempting to superglue their own wounds shut instead of getting stitches or trying to figure out how many fish tank antibiotic capsules to take for an infection. When people glue their own wounds or build their child’s walker out of PVC pipe because navigating insurance reimbursement is too Sisyphean a task, the situation is dire. Most folks would agree with that.
And then there’s FOX 5 DC. The local news station’s Twitter account tried to spin a tragic glimpse at our grave healthcare situation as a heartwarming story about a plucky family being helped by a benevolent corporation. “THIS IS AWESOME!” They said, contrary to all logic, about the following situation: “Two-year-old Logan Moore needs a walker to get around but his family didn’t know if insurance would cover for one, so his local Home Depot found parts to make it themselves.”
The fact any parents would doubt for even a moment that basic medical equipment for a toddler would be covered by insurance is decidedly not “awesome”, and people let FOX 5 DC know it:
https://twitter.com/NyleDiMarco/status/1133728423237509121
https://twitter.com/KK0618/status/1133768052791828480
To be clear: a disabled child having to use a makeshift walker built out of cheap DIY materials instead of an appropriate walking aid designed and fitted by qualified medical professionals is not awesome. It’s a travesty. https://t.co/UmrVmsFe9X
— Abbi Brown (@AbbiBrown92) May 29, 2019
And soon, people on Twitter were making morbid jokes, condemnations of this type of supposed “feel good” journalism, and bleak parody versions of the news station’s misguided headline:
HEARTWARMING- After being denied insurance this Teacher with cancer raised money with help of an ex student ♥️ pic.twitter.com/JcS3HuCiBY
— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) May 29, 2019
https://twitter.com/jpbrammer/status/1133830814033154048
SO HEARTWARMING! When this little boy’s family couldn’t afford lifesaving surgery his local Home Depot gave him a free shovel and drove him out to the desert to dig his own grave
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) May 30, 2019
Ha ha ha. Funny. Undoubtedly not a dystopian hellscape we have here. I’m definitely out on the town having the time of my life with a bunch of friends, not looking at a pile of medical bills and crying. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.