when I was a kid I got tonsillitis like most kids twisted their ankle, and when I was 8 I had a case of it so bad that I couldn't swallow solid food, so my mom took me into the free clinic1 run by the county
surprising no one, it was strep throat, but we couldn't afford medicine for it, so the doctor rooted around in the back for some free samples the pharmaceutical companies give away2, and eventually came back and handed us a whole flat of some oral antibiotic powder for suspension
we took it home, cracked open the first bottle (it came in little single-dose bottles like yakult) and mixed it into some water, and I drank it back; 45 minutes later I threw up in the toilet
we dug the empty out of the trash and it was 18 months past its expiration date, but thankfully (somehow?????) only that one bottle of the five-day course
never get sick in america, kids
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translator's note for non-americans (advanced3): while poor kids technically have access to government health insurance over here, it still has copayments; free clinics are actually free4
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translator's note for non-americans: they do this to try and get them to prescribe new $75 patented name-brand drugs instead of $4 generics
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I assume you have already been forced to learn the broad contours of our nightmarish health system
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this was the early clinton administration, and since then a lot of the government-run free clinics have closed down because of government "cost-cutting"

