My Turn: What if MRI came with Green Stamps?

Do you remember the promotional green trading stamps given out years ago at supermarkets and gas stations? The A&P had their own version called plaid stamps.

I remember helping my mother paste these stamps in the special booklets for weeks or months until the big day when she had enough to redeem them for an exciting household item she’d been saving for — an electric frying pan, a new toaster, perhaps a hand mixer. (We had simpler ideas about what was exciting back then!) If there were a few books left over, I was allowed to pick out a board game such as “Go to the Head of the Class.”

It’s a shame that stores no longer have these stamp promotions, it would be nice to get a free blender for the cost of groceries these days. But what I’d really like to see added to health care legislation is green stamps for medical procedures. As you get older, it seems there are more and more medical tests that are constantly being “required.” And as a breast cancer survivor, I find myself subject to a host of fun procedures on a regular basis — mammograms, sonograms, MRIs. Wouldn’t it be great to get something back for all the stress, discomfort and inconvenience of these tests besides a bill for the insurance co-payment? I figure by now I could have had enough green stamps to get a plasma TV and maybe a nice Jacuzzi for the balcony.