MNet: Asking Alice Special Episode 1 “Healthcare”
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Asking Alice Special Episode 1 “Healthcare”
Originally Published on November 23rd, 2491
an ONN HoloNET production
The catchy theme music and bright intro sequence display the shows numerous sponsors, New Geneva, GTT, MGM among them, before there’s Alice in a lab, a pleasant amiable smile and smooth soothing voice. She’s polished with a precision that gives her an almost unreal quality, but not quite to the point of being unpleasant.
| “Good morning, and thank you for joining me for a special edition of Asking Alice. Today. We’re going to focus on the healthcare system under New Geneva, how it works, and how you can access it, or decline access to it.
As Director of Hospitals for Genetectic, ensuring fair access to those hospitals is a big part of my job.” |
Alice walks around the lab slowly as she talks.
| “So we start at the beginning. All corporate healthcare companies are bound by New Geneva policies, and there’s several very specific ones regarding companies that provide healthcare services. These policies protect you, as the consumer of those services. Some of the things they cover are the licensing of healthcare professionals, standards and certifications of equipment, safe protocols for developing new technology and medications. All designed to ensure that we can trust our lives to facilities and people designed and trained to save them.”
“There are also several humane provisions constructed into the policies that govern Healthcare corporations. Among those, is that no hospital can deny life-saving care based on coverage or availability of finances. If you show up in grave condition? We are going to do everything we can to save you. Assuming we are successful? Then yes, we will be discussing the costs of that care and how much of it can be recovered. But medical debts are also automatically waived if you file for indigent employment. Another humane provision of healthcare policy.” |
The scene shifts to her office.
| “Another humane provision enforced by New Geneva is the requirement that Healthcare Corporations dedicate a certain amount of their budget toward charitable care in order to maintain certain important tax exemptions. That’s a very complicated way of saying that Genetectic is capable of absorbing certain healthcare costs. But you, as the patient, need to ask for that consideration. When you are discharged from the hospital, you’re asked about your billing preferences. If you’d like to apply for charitable coverage, you can ask for the application then, and send it in when you complete it.” |
The camera moves to the hospital.
| “So now you’re probably wondering how healthcare corporations can be so profitable if they have to give so much away. Everyone is entitled to life-saving intervention. But there are improvements and upgrades that go above and beyond life-saving, and directly improve the quality of the experience of receiving healthcare. Someone with coverage may have access to upgraded meals, or a semi-private or private room during their stay. They may be entitled to additional recovery time after a procedure, or access to rapid healing technologies to recover faster. These are not vital to our lives. They can be incredibly beneficial though.” |
The scene shifts to a Trauma Team landing pad, the ambulance behind her.
| “When we talk about having coverage, Healthcare Megacorps like Gentectic can arrange for you to pay small amounts at regular intervals, and that money is invested and used to offset the cost of some of those more beneficial procedures. One’s level of coverage dictates not only the options available to them, but the percentage of the regulated cost of care that the patient is expected to bear.
Even without coverage, though, you are entitled to life-saving care. If you’re not able to ask for that care yourself, it’s assumed that you would have given consent, and we will treat you. If for some reason you would like to decline that medical care, there are additional steps you need to take to ensure that we know your wishes and can respect them. You can find your Genetectic Trauma Team alert settings in your Interlink, and disable them. You’ll get a few screens warning you of the consequences of a declination of life-saving care. Because you can, and should be able to change your mind at any time, you can revoke that order by contacting Genetectic for medical assistance. It’s considered automatically revoked if you request Trauma Team.” |
The scene shifts again to her office.
| “This is a lot to cover, I know. But I felt like this is important for you to know, especially in light of some recent events. Understanding what services are available to you, will help you remember that they are there when you need them the most.
While there are some bureaucracies and policies that seem to make the system more difficult than it needs to be, at the end of the day? The entire Healthcare industry is built more on caring for humanity as a whole than on any profit won from it. It is a grossly expensive industry to build and operate, but it is also one of the strongest testaments that we, together, can lift each other up, and become more than we were before. We make lives better, longer, safer, and we understand that as humanity improves, so do we. That is our profit. Thank you for tuning in, be good to yourselves, and each other.” |
[THE SHOW CUTS TO CREDITS, AND THE SCROLL OF SPONSORS, MOST OF WHOM ARE HEALTHCARE COMPANIES.]