By Jim Hagarty
2006
You know, I’ve never had a job where the size of my paycheque would make your eyes bulge out of your head.
And I am fine with that.
I know that some of my high school chums have hauled in wages that seem like lottery winnings to me – and I’ve heard of guys from high school who were predicted to be lifelong losers who have gone on instead to amazing business careers – and I have always resisted the urge to be green with envy. Well, almost always, as I see them drive by in their new sports cars.
For long periods in our marriage, my spouse has earned more than I have made and I have absolutely no problem with that. I am overjoyed, instead, to see the family fortunes rise. The source is not important.
But – and you knew this was leading up to a big but, didn’t you – I draw the line when I learn about dead people who are earning more than I am. People who have expired, who do not get up every morning and battle the snowdrifts to get to a job and a day in the trenches (so to speak), bringing home a bigger paycheque than I do, fries my bacon to be honest with you.
I am willing to compete with living human beings and hang on desperately to a lower rung on the ladder if I have to, but I cannot take the news that people who no longer are capable of being in the workforce because they happen to be no longer alive are making more than me.
They don’t even, I suppose, have to keep an office running any more and so are saving on all the expenses of doing so.
And when I sit there sweating at tax time every April 30, I will do so knowing that a bunch of doctors who are plying their trade from six feet under will not have to bother with a little nuisance such as taxes.
Now, if the price of these lucrative gigs is dying, then I guess you’re welcome to the windfalls, but am I wrong in thinking there is something a little out of place here? Ontario’s auditor general broke this little piece of happy information in his annual report this week when he revealed that there is a lot of government health insurance fraud going on. There are 300,000 more health cards in the province than there are people and dead doctors have been receiving payments for services, presumably performed from the grave.
Now assuming I could adjust to the whole idea of the deceased earning more than the living, the AG informs me that health insurance payments have been going out to hundreds of unlicensed doctors. Hundreds. Not four or five. Hundreds.
As disturbing as this development may be, it does actually hold out some hope for me. I am willing to be the star attraction at a funeral home just so I can make more money below the ground than I do above it, but the idea that I could become an unlicensed doctor and get paid for healing the sick has a certain appeal to me. We have a couple of medical books around the house. I could read up on a few things and put out my shingle: “Dr. James Hagarty. Family Doctor and Medical Specialist.” I could look down a few throats, hammer on some knees to test reflexes, tell everybody to lose weight and stop smoking and then send in my bills to the government. The payments that would come in would probably keep me going for the rest of my days
And then some.
