*all sarcasm has been italicized*

It’s now officially been just over two months since Stephen Paddock’s name became synonymous with mass murder after perpetrating the single deadliest, well, mass shooting in American history, and while our elected representatives — Richard Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein, Chris Murphy, and Bernie Sanders notwithstanding — remain too cowardly to even propose some piece of meaningful legislation pertaining to gun control, lost in the horror and tragedy of 58 attendees of the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival being slaughtered and 546 other concertgoers also sustaining significant injuries in a mere ten minutes at the hands of a mad man with an arsenal of modified automatic weapons, there was, in fact, an unreported silver lining that has absolutely nothing to do with saving 15% percent or more on one’s car insurance by switching to Geico.

In a report on NBC Nightly News, correspondent Steve Patterson explained that for a sizable portion of the 546 people as to who sustained significant injuries, surviving the tragedy was only half of the battle, as the medical expenses incurred as a result would, unfortunately, be through the roof, leading many to create pages on the crowdfunding site GoFundMe.com in an attempt to at least somewhat offset any part of their now-heavy financial burden via donations. The most successful, by far, of these campaigns has been the Las Vegas Victims’ Fund, established “just hours after the shooting” by the Chairman of the Clark County Commission in Las Vegas, Steve Sisolak. When asked by Patterson as to how the over $10 million in funds (at the time of the airing of the story) would be distributed among those as to who were left hurting, both financially and physically, in the wake of the carnage, Sisolak replied, “What we’d like to do, hopefully, is get everybody, at the end, to put a single fund together, and then distribute the money out of that in the most fair and equitable basis.”

If that approach sounds at all familiar it’s perhaps most likely due to the fact that, well, it just so happens to be quite similar to the model of the National Health Service, or NHS (an acronym with which I will forever associate the National Honor Society), in the United Kingdom, with the principal difference being, in this particular case, that instead of having everyone pay into the system via taxation (that dirty, dirty word here in ‘Murica) with the finances subsequently being distributed according to need regarding medical bills, everyone gets comprehensive healthcare that is both “free at the point of delivery and based on clinical need, not the ability to pay.”

Unfortunately, that kind of logic and sense of community has been proven to have absolutely no place in the States, and, admittedly, I’m not sure of as to how, when, or why we managed to arrive at the let’s say conclusion, as a country, that somehow “sharing is caring” + a genuine sense of community = socialism — although I’m going to go out on a limb, here, and say that the safe bet, most likely, is that the fault, well, here, as with everything else, lies with Obama, because Obama — primarily owing to the tremendous generosity that is routinely displayed by the American people via financial donations, Habitat for Humanity, mission trips, and the Peace Corps, etc., in the wake of many a humanitarian disaster, as the entire construct is simply hypocritically nonsensical.

For example, in the aftermath of the earthquake in 2010 that left Haiti completely and utterly devastated, our response, as a people, was one that came from a place of compassion as evidenced by the tremendous outpouring of aid, and yet when it comes to even proposing universal healthcare FOR OUR OWN CITIZENS as opposed to having to completely rebuild the infrastructure of the aforementioned nation, the attitude displayed by a good chunk of this country is one of, umm, “you better work, bitch?” Forgive me, but something just fails to compute, here, and as it turns out, neither do the numbers.

According to a 2015 article on Business Insider written by dual-citizen and founding editor of the site’s UK chapter, Jim Edwards, “There is no such thing as a “free,” [sic] of course, but the per-capita cost of healthcare in the UK (paid by the government via tax collections [#OhTheHorror]) is generally lower than the US, according to the World Health Organization. Americans spend $8,362 per capita on healthcare annually, the Brits spend $3,480.” So as to what are we doing wrong, on our side of the pond, as it were? In a word — everything, but the crux of the issue is, once again, really one that is born out of ideology, as in the United Kingdom, not to mention the vast majority of the rest of the civilized world, if healthcare is not regarded as a fundamental right of man — as it should be in this country — then it is at least viewed as, at the absolute bare minimum, an essential service, whereas in the United States such is seen as a business, and, most regrettably, until that mindset changes #FingersCrossed, nothing ever will.

That’s not to say that the British model is perfect, of course, but at the same time, there’s a reason as to why it’s been consistently ranked as the best healthcare system in the world, and for those of you as to who are apprehensive about the whole setup and/or for some odd reason would prefer to continue paying out of pocket for medical expenses, fear not, as while the NHS covers everyone, it is far from your only option for healthcare in the UK, as the former can also be provided via the growing private medical insurance industry and/or your employer(s), because this is America, and it’s all about choice.

Moreover, for the “get a job” crowd, it’s worth mentioning that as of an article in The Guardian from January 2016, the heretofore mentioned venerable public institution ranked as the fifth largest employer in the world, sporting a workforce of about 1.6 million people (or about 1 in every 20 working Britons), trailing only McDonald’s, Walmart, China’s People’s Liberation Army, and the U.S. Department of Defense, respectively, and therefore, if that tiny island can be home to such a great “job creator”, just think about the number of people as to who could be put to work by the same kind of operation here in the United States. Think of the Buzz Lightyear meme — Jobs. Jobs, Everywhere.

Just imagine, America — no more copays; no more deductibles; no more insurance cards (that is, of course, unless you want to continue on down that path, which is fine); no more medical bills (for the most part); minimal paperwork; no more premiums; no more worrying insofar as to whether or not your insurance will cover your trip to the doctor/hospital; no more having to go to Canada for cheaper prescription drugs; your tax dollars actually going toward something that will directly benefit you (if that’s as to how you choose/want to look at the program, anyway); and as for those government “death panels” — yeah, they’re still fake news.

For people such as the former chief lobbyist for the health insurance industry and Borg Queen lookalike Karen Ignagni, such a future would undoubtedly represent their worst nightmare coming to fruition, but for the rest of us, well, it sounds like a kind of healthcare utopia.

How much do guns cost, again?