Zombie Hulk Giving Zombie Magneto The Ride Of His Life

You know, what could be more devastating than a person given mutant powers or superhuman strength?  That’s right: zombies with these self-same properties.  What would normally be only a marginally interesting thought experiment, somebody decided to turn into a reality.  Should your fancy strike you, perhaps you can collect your own figurines.  All I gotta say is this, though: a Wolverine zombie would easily be far less superior to a normal Wolverine.  Just saying.

Zombies Advocating Health Care Reform: Can We Trust Their Motives?

In an historic vote today, the House passed health care reform in the United States, extending coverage to over 30 million uninsured Americans.  And though many would argue that this falls far short of a public option that could potentially cover all Americans and guarantee equal access to quality health care services, I think we must consider the benefits of only incremental progress as we are thereby avoiding the unintended consequences of a health care bill that has not fully explored the ramifications of extensive coverage: namely health care for zombies.

The Mad As Hell Doctors from Stop The Zombie Apocalypse are a group of zombies and zombie sympathizers who claim that a universal single-payer option is the only way to stop the zombie apocalypse.  The argument is that private insurers are doing too little to prevent zombie hordes from consuming our nation.  And while I agree that private insurance’s relative disdain and/or disregard of preventative medicine, I must truly question the motives of undead hordes advocating for health care for all.  Let’s consider the fact that Undead Americans are, in fact, still Americans.  If we had health care for all, what is to say that our zombified compatriots would not then qualify for health care coverage?  Would we need to pay for their brain sustenance?  Could we no longer deny them limb-replacement surgery based on their pre-existing condition of being dead?  What are medically necessary procedures for the undead?  Is it more ethical to prevent zombification of the living or deny zombies their right to unlife?

In general, I would call myself a supporter of health care reform, but I am glad that we are not blindly providing coverage to everybody without considering the effect it would have on zombie health care.  Let the debate begin!

Here are some of my favorite designs:

A T-shirt That Pretty Much Summarizes My Thought Processes

I think "Zombieland" definitively proved this to be true.

No longer available, probably due to censorship. Zombie Jesus would not approve.

Instead, I have stumbled upon a video game that merges two of my greatest passions: zombies and soccer.  You can watch the video below, but it’s pretty self explanatory.  It’s you with a soccer ball against a horde of oncoming zombies that have you cornered.  Naturally, you use your soccer ball to destroy the onslaught of zombies.  Apparently you can employ the use of a laser-shooting satellite from space and extra-special soccer balls to get rid of those particularly persistent hordes, and I’m guessing there are probably some other tricks up your sleeve, as well.

This game kind of looks awful, but simultaneously kind of looks like something that should be in my collection.  Either way, knowing that this game even exists makes me insanely happy.

In it you play a mad scientist who directs a horde of zombies from your own crafting.  Using them, you go around town trying to take over the town and, perhaps, the world.  It’s a small game, and apparently the game play is mediocre at best, but the premise and the aesthetics are right up my alley.  Still, must remember not to buy this video game system just for this game.  I figure if I could resist getting Xbox for the sole purpose of purchasing “Left 4 Dead” (and soon the sequel! Squee!), I should be able to hold off on this one, too.

Never Allow Zombies to Be Transplant Surgeons (totally stolen from Sierra Madre News)

As I was spending my free time flipping through the latest in zombie literature on PubMed, as I’m often wont to do, I came across this troubling article headline from a 2008 issue of the journal Health Affairs:

The Politics of Paying for Health Reform: ZOMBIES, Payroll Taxes, and the Holy Grail

My first thought, naturally, was holy crap!  An argument for taking my tax dollars and financing health care coverage for zombies may be intellectually stimulating discussion, but not something I can in good conscience throw my weight behind.  I was shocked to think that, given all the outrage about the remote possibility of illegal immigrants gaining access to our cherished health care coverage, there was nary a peep about these flesh-eating ghouls roaming our hospitals and taking up all our precious H1N1 vaccines and doping up on all our anesthetics (they like the ether, or so I’m told).

But because I try to read a little bit more beyond the headline of an article, I guess I came out with a slightly better understanding of what it was about health care reform that zombies factored into.

Mainly there was a lot of non-zombie-related tripe, starting with the political context of the challenges that health care reform chases, such as a blindly accepted ideal that raising taxes is akin to feasting on the flesh of your relatives, and that somehow we find safety barricading ourselves in the financial shelters of employer- and employee-provided health insurance premiums, payroll taxes, federal/state revenues, and those delectable “sin” taxes, not to mention the out of pocket payment that so many U.S. citizens (and non-citizens) fork over.  Within that context, and considering the public’s general desire to eschew change like a zombie cowers from fire, the incomprehensibly large 1.2 trillion dollar price tag is a tough pill to swallow for most.  The main arguments this paper reviews are about the economic feasibility, not the moral undergirding, of health care reform and the authors offer up several non-mutually-exclusive options.

On the side of the conservatives, they have mainly advocated for the so-called “golden grail”: the elimination of the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance, instead favoring a far more modest tax “rebate” that would allow the federal government more funds (to the tune of $200 billion per year) to spend on covering the uninsured (or, more likely, financing arms stockpiling against the impending ravenous hordes).  Problem is, they’d be taxing the health insurance benefits and only offering modest compensation, so that doesn’t end up being particularly popular.  Furthermore, this policy in and of itself does not guarantee that health insurance is any more accessible or affordable, thereby having only questionable relevance to health care coverage beyond generating oodles of money for the federal government to spend however they please.

The so-called “foreigner” plan, or value-added tax, is on the more progressive side of the health care debate, most closely approximating a true socialist plan.  In these cases, the VATs would draw their funding from a broadly applied taxation system that would divorce the health care provisions from the bill by linking it to taxation unassociated with health care.  While this makes it a little more palatable in some ways, it is hard to get people to agree to willingly tax themselves for a public good.  Furthermore, this taxation would have to supply funding for an expense industry that makes upwards of 16% of our GDP.  Again, hard but for the most liberal of the hippies to swallow.

There is also the “All-American” way of financing health care reform from general revenues by, say, halting multi-billion dollar war machines in Iraq and Afghanistan and diverting funding to, say, health care policy.  Another way would be to roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy implemented early in Bush’s tenure, which could help generated much needed funds from a source traditionally associated with stupid amounts of cash.  Making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient would also generate funds, but is this financially tenable or politically palatble?

Which finally brings us to the true crux of my exposition on this topic: the Zombie plan.  I save this for last even though it’s probably the worst of the plans.  Which makes sense, because anything associated with zombies is generally not good for anybody’s health.

Right away, the paper lambasts the employer mandate as being inequitable, leaving many uninsured, promoting “job lock,” unaccommodating to part-time, self-employed, and “new economy” labor forces, and putting companies front-and-center into making some of the most personal decisions any of us will ever have to face.  Furthermore, businesses routinely respond less than favorably to any government interference into their financial practices, making it unlikely that they will adopt mandatory minimums of coverage without a fight.  Furthermore, demanding that they shoulder the burden during tough economic times virtually guarantees that some businesses will go under while others will never start to begin with.  The reason this is called the “Zombie” plan is because it’s a viciously evil beast that should just die but keeps being resurrected.

However, efforts are being made to blow the head off and ride the corpse down the snowy mountain into the valley of promise, the most recent iteration being the so-called “public option.”  While its critics say that it smacks of backdoor, government-sponsored commie-care, advocates instead herald the pay-or-play option by instituting a payroll tax on participating businesses that want to buy their way into a government-assisted health plan or opt to pay for it on their own.  Kind of like having a zombie that does chores for you (a la Fido).  Proponents say that if it works for Medicare and Medicaid, why couldn’t it work for everybody?

So, from the looks of it, we’re stuck with a zombie health care financing system and it looks like the most politically tenable option, even in spite of the hemming and hawing of the conservative naysayers.  And even the health care reform proposed today is just a variation of the zombie theme, just gussied up to look like it might not eventually chew a hole into our faces.

But, in all honesty, don’t the zombies always win?  Why shouldn’t they take control of our health care coverage, too?

Terrifyingly weird, and utterly perplexing, zombie baby scene from Peter Jackson’s “Dead Alive,” or “Braindead” for the hardcore fanatics out there (like myself):

And then the equally terrifying, but much more genuinely so, zombie baby from Dawn of the Dead.

Makes you think twice about pregnancy, doesn’t it?