Paying the Piper

There is a current story in the news of a physician named Dr. Fada who, it seems, billed Medicare and other insurance corporations a grand total of 20 million dollars for services rendered. Sadly, he levied a more intangible, but excruciatingly real billing on the cancer patients represented by this amazing monetary figure. You see, having worked his way through the legal process, the doctor readily admits that few, if any of the 500 plus patients he treated

…actually had cancer.

Imagine hundreds upon hundreds of precious people having been informed they had cancer, and who having submitted themselves to radiation and chemotherapy, discovered that they had submitted themselves to a lie, and an abject liar! It was only after one of his patients sought a second opinion, and the results came in that the bogus diagnosis was discovered.

As a result of Dr. Fada’s purposeful fraud upon our government and its citizens, and having been found guilty of all charges, he recently stood before a judge, and justice was meted out. And just prior to his sentencing, and to “put the cherry on the whip cream” this fraudster wept and pleaded with his judge to be lenient with him; (when he had been anything but lenient with his patients).

In the end, this judge was altogether unmoved by the selfish doctor’s crocodile tears. He received a sentence of 45 years; with little time off for good behavior. In all likelihood the man will die in prison.

A sad commentary on the time in which we live.

It is so easy for me, and, indeed, my wife as well, to relate to the plight of the afore-mentioned cancer patients, and the fraud perpetrated upon them. Jean and I have both experienced cancer. We have walked that perilous journey. We have known the fear which permeates each step of the pathway. We have endured the surgeries and peripheral treatment required to rid ourselves of the last molecule of this invasive host.

As a counselor I teach a principle I have labeled “Short Term Satisfaction vs. Long Term Results.”

The foregoing story is an excellent example of this concept. Our doctor was “in it for the money,” while all the while compartmentalizing the possibility that one day, some day out there in the future, he would be found out, and justice would be rendered; that he would have “to pay the piper.”

And of course Dr. Fada’s story is microcosmic in the realm of the literally billions among us, myself included, who have, at one time or another, in one way or the other, at one level or the other, practiced the principle which we are examining today.

People going about their business, moving and breathing and living and behaving, and all the while making very bad choices which, ultimately, catch up with them.

The man who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day over the course of decades, and who seems genuinely surprised when he develops inoperable lung cancer.

The 4^th year university student who plagiarises several sources on a final paper, and who is, subsequently, denied the degree for which he has poured untold thousands of dollars, and the time and effort it took to get there.

The husband or wife who allows themselves to be entrapped by an affair with a co-worker, and who, hope against hope, attempts to conceal their infidelity from their spouse; but who, ultimately, is discovered in one too many lies.

And the list goes on.

I think it’s imperative that we begin to take responsibility for our mindsets and resulting actions. I think it behooves us to make and follow through with better choices. I think it’s time to, as a character in one of my favorite movies once said, “Ante up and kick in.”

Living for the short term and all it seems to offer has long term results. It bears bitter fruit. We will NEVER get away with not paying the piper.

He is waiting out there on some corner, or alley way

…and he insists on being paid.

 

By William McDonald, PhD. From "Musings"