The Mob is jealous...

I have a friend named Vito, he's a nice guy, but I do my very best to stay on his good side because of his...ah,,, occupation. You see, Vito runs the collections department for an organization that has been getting bad press since the sixties. He's very good at his job, but he has been telling me for years about a little case of professional jealousy he suffers from.
"When I got to whack somebody, and I don't whack them just out of spite, I always give them a chance to make good first." he told me the other day. "But there's a gang of schmucks that ain't letting me do that anymore. These putzes are interfering with my business, used to be I could go smack some sense into some jamoke who didn't want to do the right thing and when they got out of the hospital I could get the bosses money pretty quick. But this new gang, they're getting in the way. Ya gotta understand, I don't want nobody hurt bad, I just want to make my point and get business back on schedule. These new clowns though, they got no morals. The doc used to fix folks up for me, I'd make my point and he'd bring them back so they could get back to work and get the boss paid. But now when Doc's done with them, now the Doc can't get paid. It's interfering with my "motivational speaking assignments" I call them. I can't blame the Doc for not doing his bit no more, I don't work if I ain't getting paid either. The guys I'm talking about just got no ethics. A lot of the folks I have to persuade have been paying these schmucks protection money for decades and when it's time to pony up, they don't do it. The Boss gets protection money too, so it ain't the business model I'm
bitching about, hell I got a hundred grand one day for saving a guy from a bomb I found.(It was in my hand.) But I ain't never hurt no little kids, I got scruples see. If I gotta whack some clown I whack him and the Boss writes off the loss like a stand up guy. But these new jokers, they get their money up front and they even got Uncle Sam working for them, and they still don't keep their word. It ain't right to run a racket like that. It just ain't honorable."
Vito has a very well developed sense of honor.
"See these new guys, this HMO gang, they hold the kiddies health hostage, nothing wrong with hostages, but damn it a guy just has to draw the line with the kids. They ain't a part of their old man's problems. You let a kid get whacked and you might cost the world a DaVinci or one of those composer guys or something. The world ain't got enough art and music, I don't want to interfere with culture, the world needs more beauty, I got class see. But these new guys, they don't care about making the world a better place like me and the boys do. You smack a kid in front of me and I'll....well, don't smack a kid in front of me, OK?
And if that ain't bad enough, they let the guy's women, his wife, his sisters, whatever other girls there might be, they let them get hurt too. How's a guy gonna concentrate on making money when the wife and kids ain't safe? How you gonna pull..do a job when the whole family is in danger? Nobody can operate like that."
At this point Vito's pretty red in the face, so like the genius I am, I keep my mouth shut and prepare for the language to get rough.
"These fuckin schmucks let a guy run around with all that stress every Goddamned day, you know he's gonna die from ulcers before the Boss gets his cash, but they don't care, they got theirs! To hell with the rest of us out here bustin our balls to make a living, they got theirs and it's game over. Had a guy the other day drop dead from a stroke 'cause his kid needed a kidney and they said the little fart was already sick once, we ain't paying. He's a dad, he worried himself to death. Now the guy's dead, the kid's still sick, and the old lady's working at Micky D's trying to feed the other two kids. I took them a couple of grand, but their mortgage "adjusted" so it was give it to the bank or go live under a bridge, those bastards got no heart either."
Now Vito's getting really worked up, he starts acting like he's talking to a health insurance CEO.
"You and me are in the same business damn it, we both get money to keep people safe. But you don't keep your word, you got no class. I ain't never whacked nobody that's making their payments, and if somebody wants my protection, I supply the goddamned service I advertise!! I don't care if they had some problems before, that's what I'm here to fix! And if the kids are in trouble. I don't care if I don't make no money, I got a reputation to uphold. I got other clients, it'll work out. But you fuckin schmucks, if you can't bleed em you don't need em, how's anybody gonna make any cash from a dead guy? I'm telling you jamokes right now you're a danger to the racket, and that ain't a good thing to be. You grow some class you fuckin joker, you get some ethics or you're gonna gain about an ounce one night soon. I don't usually even put up with competition but you own more politicians and what's fair is fair so I ain't sending the boys over yet, but if you're going to be in the protection rackets, and you know as well as I do that's exactly what business you're in, you better get some dignity."
Vito is pretty upset, he's a "people person," and health insurance negligence kills forty four thousand of them a year. That isn't tolerated anywhere else on the planet, nowhere. I can't find any argument that has merit to dispute Vito's opinion that health insurance is just a legalized protection racket where they are allowed to hold your children's health hostage to whatever terms they decide to impose.
Private health insurance is organized crime, we just don't have any laws against it. I think it's about time we make some.

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