What the Heck is a Deductible?

Good evening everybody. This is The Daily Bone, and I’m your humble doggie host, Chester L. W. Spaniel. Save up your squeaky toys! You’ll need them to pay the deductible!

My erudite colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel and I are getting tired of hearing the same old thing on the news over and over again. I’m sure you know what I mean! We doggies tried to figure out O-care using squeaky toys and the cost of vet visits. But we kept coming up with negative numbers, especially when it came to deductibles. But you know we doggies are not very good at math. We also had a heated disagreement about the monetary value of squeaky toys. Joey dog doesn’t think the government will accept my ragged old squeaky toys as payment for my insurance premium. Yum yums, on the other hand, might work. So why don’t we just pay the vet directly with yum yums (or squeaky toys) instead of involving the government in the middle of the transaction? We decided it didn’t make sense in terms of doggie logic, and the humans must be crazy. Anyway, here we are in the newsroom trying to figure out what else to talk about today.

Fortunately, we heard from our good friend The Lady Galadriel (Lady) today. She called to tell us about the strange things her humans have been doing out in the yard. For some reason they’re digging up the grass, and making long, straight rows of plants all cataloged and identified with special little tags. She is totally mystified! I asked Lady if she tried giving the plants a good sniff to figure out what they are. She said she doesn’t spend much time outside because in her part of Planet Florida there are lots of nasty ticks that bite and make her delicate, sensitive skin all itchy and inflamed. I happened to get a tick stuck to me once this summer, and it was not a good experience! Bleah!

So then Joey dog and I thought about other instances where humans plant things in straight rows. Our yard has a few rows of flowers which I routinely dig up whenever I suspect a mousie might be hiding under them. (I’ve gotten into big trouble for doing that!) Then we remembered one of our humans talking about driving past big fields of corn on her way to work. These fields were all planted in perfect rows. Joey dog pointed out that the Yum Yum Coalition has corn listed as a delicious summer time treat along with tomatoes and pears. We suggested to Lady that perhaps her humans are doing some type of farming, and that yum yums might ensue from their efforts.

Yum yums?

The mysterious rows.

Lady perked up about that. Yum yums are the most important part of her day. Joey dog and I can agree with that. But then Joey dog took doggie logic a bit farther. Maybe the rows of plants Lady’s humans were planting are like a savings account they could use later if they had to pay a big deductible. But why give the government the yum yums when you can eat them yourself, Lady argued. I was still puzzled about what, exactly, a deductible is. It kind of sounds to me more like a defense against the duck dynasty. You know, a de-duck-tible? Joey and Lady told me to shut up and go sit in the corner.

So, after all that discussion we doggies still haven't figured out what a deductible is. And that's a memo.

Sheesh!