Roughly eighteen years ago, two babies were born in the same wing of the same hospital, only hours apart. Their respective parents knew of each other, but had never been close, but this one event was something they would always have in common. A year later, they decided to get together for a joint birthday party, and the tradition lived on until one of those children died. Viola Woods and I were never good friends. Though we saw each other in the halls of school, we didn’t hang out together, beyond our annual celebration. It’s not that we didn’t like each other, but we never had much in common, other than something with only one in three hundred and sixty-five chance. She was always very good around other people. She loved them, and wanted to help. It makes me sound like a terrible person that I’m the opposite, but I’m just a proponent of self-sufficiency. I believe in capitalism, and hard work. I recognize that not everyone in this country has been given the same opportunities as others, so I don’t need to check my privilege, or anything. It’s all about affordability, which is a form of capitalism that people seem to ignore. They think anything they buy costs that much because the people selling that product or service have some corrupt control over it. And to some extent, this is true, but there are ways of protecting the consumer without using governmental oversight. Education is the number one solution to all of our problems, and probably the only thing I believe should be extremely inexpensive outright, though not entirely free. The reason you can’t stop hospitals from gouging you for every dime you have, and then some, is because you don’t know where it is they get their prices. We don’t have to have insurance, the simple fact that the government has recently required it is a great example of what’s wrong here.
Health insurance companies have been artificially inflating costs since they first began, and it’s only gotten worse over time. Instead of spending so many resources on free clinics, we should be teaching the citizens the truth, and arming them with what they need to fight back. The healthcare facilities and insurance companies are only able to screw us over because we let them. Viola was a free clinic kind of girl. I’m a free market—power to the people—kind of girl. Alma, you may not have released your interviews yet, but people are already talking about them. They’re sharing their personal stories with each other, and the biggest take away from all this is that Viola spent every waking moment helping others. Every student has been impacted greatly by her acts, even if they don’t fully understand the scope of that impact quite yet. Well, I’m here to tell you that this is not the case for everyone. Viola and I were born on the same day, but we only ever got together to please our parents, who never stopped thinking this piece of trivia was cute. She never helped me with anything. I mean, yeah, she was the only one whose friends came to our parties in the early years, which means I probably wouldn’t have been able to have one without her, unless I wanted to sit there alone. And it’s true that she was born a week later than she was meant to, and her parents, for some reason, attribute this to baby Viola’s will power. No, that’s crazy. Viola didn’t
help me by being born on the same day as me, because she couldn’t have done anything on purpose. Right? Is she the only reason I have friends?
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