Of course, there was no way his IT staff could find the missing file, because it didn't exist. But that didn't stop them from making it yet someone else's problem. In the meantime, however, the company was unable to pay its US-based front-line staff, a situation that was not taken lightly. To make matters worse, over fourteen hundred medical centers across the US suddenly discovered that their document servers had gone offline, and that the offshore radiologists who assessed the ongoing deluge of CT scans were unable to report their findings.
Things did not go well. ER patients waiting for turn-around on their CT scans were stranded in medical limbo. Once the empty beds were full, triage staff was called in to determine whether incoming patients or those already in beds ought to get priority. Angry patients and their families on both sides of the divide converged on hospital administrators demanding action. Frustrated and confused, the crowds started calling for help, clogging the local cell towers and playing havoc with medical equipment.
The panic set off by the initial press reports on the fiasco was in full swing when an enterprising legal intern in a Boise hospital raised a question with the local newspaper. She'd been digging through the convoluted text of the health care reform act of 2009, looking for a loophole that could be used to opt out of the mandated coverage scheme that was crippling the organization, when she found the missing comma.
"I'm not sure what this means," she told the medical reporter, "but without that comma, the whole sense of the limitations on who can opt out of the system seems to be turned on its head. The way I read it, anyone with a pre-existing condition can terminate their coverage if the insurance company used it to determine the cost of their premiums or the amount of reimbursement on tests and procedures."
"But..." the reporter said, and then paused for a long moment, "but that's everyone."
"Yeah. I know. So what do we do?"
"Celebrate!"
THE END
Things did not go well. ER patients waiting for turn-around on their CT scans were stranded in medical limbo. Once the empty beds were full, triage staff was called in to determine whether incoming patients or those already in beds ought to get priority. Angry patients and their families on both sides of the divide converged on hospital administrators demanding action. Frustrated and confused, the crowds started calling for help, clogging the local cell towers and playing havoc with medical equipment.
The panic set off by the initial press reports on the fiasco was in full swing when an enterprising legal intern in a Boise hospital raised a question with the local newspaper. She'd been digging through the convoluted text of the health care reform act of 2009, looking for a loophole that could be used to opt out of the mandated coverage scheme that was crippling the organization, when she found the missing comma.
"I'm not sure what this means," she told the medical reporter, "but without that comma, the whole sense of the limitations on who can opt out of the system seems to be turned on its head. The way I read it, anyone with a pre-existing condition can terminate their coverage if the insurance company used it to determine the cost of their premiums or the amount of reimbursement on tests and procedures."
"Yeah. I know. So what do we do?"
"Celebrate!"
THE END
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