A Stupid Price to Pay – by Treg D. Loyden

Hospitals and Doctors don’t advertise their prices and it’s the norm. Is there something wrong with that?

Back in the 6th grade in 1973, we had a guy come to our class from Soviet Russia. He was a violinist and had escaped and got asylum. Our teach asked us all, "Please ask 'Surrgay' your questions". The number one question we asked again and again was, "Why did you come here?"
Surrgay said solemnly, "I was 35 and I know I will need doctor soon. You don't want to be 35 and need Russian doctors." and he laughed. The teacher just stood there, silent, and our mouths dropped, not getting it. Indeed we were all confused by the answer. We wanted to hear that he was going to be sent to Siberia and had escaped. We wanted to hear him say that he had written some bad words against Lenin, Stalin, or the current Communist leader. But he escaped because he wanted good medicine? He's joking, we thought.

I raised my hand. "What was your second reason for leaving" -- thinking the REAL reason would now come out.
Surrgay said, "I just love American Grocery stores, you've got bananas everyday!"

Before he could say another word we all busted up laughing. Grocery stores? What? Did he say grocery stores? Bananas? That was hilariously funny. I think every 6th grader that day had finally found a reason to fall completely out of their hard uncomfortable school desks.

Surrgay explained. He took a very serious tone with us. We all quieted down. He WAS serious. "You laugh. I don't laugh." he said in a rough Russian-English accent. He shook his finger and seemed to get close, now walking down the rows, slightly bend down pressing his face near ours and raising a finger to us all. His eyes grew serious and you could see, then, that he was an 'escaper', which was our 6th grade word for the latest asylum seeker from Russia. He announced, "You go into any American grocery store. Every day, bananas are there! Amazing. Grapes are there. Amazing! Vegetables and everything is ALWAYS THERE! Always! This is amazing. You should not take this for granted, never."

Then the teacher, she spoke up and she said as if to change the mood. "Surrgay is right class, we are very fortunate and lucky to be living in a country blessed with such abundance". Abundance was one of our spelling words that day and I could tell she thought she was still teaching us with that special animated pronunciation on the word, "a bun dance".

Surrgay would have none of that. He swiveled to her, straightened up, returned down the aisle and raised his finger now to her! "No, not lucky! Not lucky! No not blessed! And certainly not fortunate! No, no, no, no!"
Our teacher, perhaps shocked and trying to regain control of her class said, "Well America has great farmland and resources that the rest of the world doesn't have..." as if to correct Surrgay.

Surrgay would have none of it. "Russia has more resources! More of everything. Mother Russia is twice the size and better nature resources!"

Our teacher said, thinking she had him with a fact, "Well then why does America export all its wheat to Russia then?"
Surrgay said, "You've got freedom to own the land. We don't. You have a price system here. We don't have Prices! Don’t you see? You have shoes, we don't. You have grocery stores. We don't."

Our teacher still thinking she had Surrgay, "Are you saying Russians doesn't have grocery stores and shoes? Oh Surrgay we know you are teasing us" and she chuckled.

Surrgay, turning to our little bright American faces said desperately "Our stores have nothing in them. You get in line. Long long lines. You get vouchers -- tickets--from the government for 'free things' to buy. But there is nothing you want in the stores. No bananas when you want a banana. No strawberries, no Milk, no cheese, no MEAT!"
Our teacher laughing now, "Wow I am surprised that millions of Russians are not starving"

Surrgay, sharply replied, "They are starving, slowly. It’s a slow death. You have prices. We don't. You have this capitalist system, its good. Prices for everything, that is what makes this the best country in the world." And when Surrgay said W O R L D you just believed him. It was fact. It was true. We produced everything in 1973. We lent other countries money and we even sent Russia and China wheat so they wouldn’t starve. We felt good about ourselves. We knew we were better. But we where better because we had prices? This we didn’t know.

Our teacher then had had enough. "Surrgay, you are from Russia, a communist country. Are you saying that Capitalism which gives us our high prices, prices that the poor can't afford, is better?" she said in disbelief.

Surrgay, "YES!" then he turned and walked down the aisle. "Kids, don't listen to this teacher. She is a liberal. We got them in Russia. She believes in government. Don't listen to her.” He said it all with a disgust and snarl, as if he’d tasted dog feces. We stared back in disbelief, but transfixed by this news. Then he condemned her, “Her paycheck is government check! You have to not listen to these people, these liberals. You will lose your country to them like we lost ours. I only come here today because I like her sister in the symphony."

I had had my hand up a long time, and Surrgay knowing we were all looking at the shocked teacher barked, "What is your question?". I was thrilled to get to ask a second question, something I never got to do ...

...."My parents are liberals and they liked McGovern because they are against the war. Are you against the war?" That was my litmus test. In my 6th grade mind you were good if you were against the Vietnam war, bad if you were not. I had seen our neighborhood teenager get drafted, go off and come back dead. I had seen his older sister, champion on the volleyball team, wilt into crying mess for months. That was enough for me. I had no beef with the Vietnamese. I knew one thing, if they wanted to be communist, let ‘em.

Surrgay said, "I don't like war or Vietnam. This must stop. But McGovern is a liberal. Not good for prices and you always need PRICES! You need Freedom yes? Prices are Freedom. Prices and Freedom they go together like man and woman. Prices and Freedom is life for you and me, yes? McGovern hates prices. Much better to vote Goldwater."
And so began my investigation into Goldwater and my political intellectual life.... and the rest is history as they say.

Surrgay came to visit us again in the 7th grade and I sat there as the only one to hear the same surprising tale again. He escaped for USA medicine. He escaped for Grocery Stores. He escaped for Prices.

So let me ask YOU directly, my American friend. Do you think it’s strange and odd and perhaps troubling that doctors and hospitals don’t advertise their prices?

Sure the cosmetic surgery industry that does post all of its prices upfront, but doesn't that makes it all the more strange that the rest of the medical profession is so mysterious with their prices? I know firsthand that emergency room doctors and nurses have no idea what they are doing costs me, the emergency consumer. As the medical bills trickled in over the next 90 days, it turned out that a broken left arm cost me 6 hours of emergency room hell and well over six thousand dollars! Yet while I was there waiting and waiting, in some American journal I read about an American bicyclist who was riding in Thailand had broken his harm. He went to the best hospitals with all the modern marvels. He was in and out of the hospital in 3 hours and the cost? 34,000 Thai Baht or less than $1,100 dollars! Prices where stated up front that anyone could see.

I know Surrgay would be very upset with America's medical system. He loved prices and he loved our freedom to shop them. Today, with the internet, couldn't we quickly find out who specializes in broken arms? Why must we go to the all-in-one, one-stop-shop hospital and hope for the best 30 days later?

For Surrgay, prices where to him, the only honest expression of freedom between one man towards another. If someone didn’t come right out with the price, they were being devious and untrustworthy. If the authorities” allowed someone, anyone to get away with not posting their prices for services right up front, then someone was guilty of fraud.

Surrgay died on the 4th week after the first Gulf War started. He died protesting it. His youngest of four sons had sent me a picture of Surrgay. His son wrote that his dad loved American and loved being an American. He said that his dad died a worried man for the country he grew to love so much.

The picture he sent was of Surrgay standing tall, swallowed in a sea of liberal protesters which you just know he hated. But he had something to say and there he said it with a big broad smile.

Standing there in that crowd he carried his tall homemade sign that read, “IRAQ WAR = A STUPID PRICE TO PAY.”

As I just stared at that picture I couldn't help but think about what Surrgay had missed since then. He missed the Bill Clinton years. He missed Clinton's continued bombing of Iraq for 8 more years in "no fly zones" - "A Stupid Price to Pay". He missed Clinton's bombing of Bosnia - "A Stupid Price to Pay." He missed Mrs Clinton and her attempt of socialized medicine. And I am sure he would have been holding up the same sign under GW Bush and his Iraq war of 2003 and President Obama's medical plan of 2010. I am sure he would have been out protesting all of these things using the same sign. Just one simple sign and it would say...... "A STUPID PRICE TO PAY"

Treg