Maybe Meredith Whitney’s forecast of our economy for the next two years provided the grist in my mind overnight to foment elements of a novel or screenplay:

Setting:  Outbreak or Epidemic with limited ability of the Administration to provide treatment (perhaps medicine or antidote) to all infected or to be infected.

[Subtext:  Medical coverage ; medical insurance].

Historical parallels:  The Titanic (limited lifeboats available); Nazi Concentration Camps (Quarantine and “liquidate” lower “classes”).

Basis of Plot:  Administration must make a Sofie’s Choice , decides to segregate those with medical coverage from those without medical coverage or other means to pay for treatment, medicine or antidote.   

Dark Side:  Save covered patients; quarantine (and let die) uncovered.  Historical references: Titanic & lifeboats, Nazi Concentration Camps & Genocide.

I’m watching The Crisis  (1950) starring Cary Grant as the doctor and Jose Ferrer as the Oil Man.  I wonder if this movie influenced me too.  Definitely regarding who gets medical treatment and who doesn’t.  “Save me doctor!” pleads the revolutionary to the doctor, played by Cary Grant, pondering whether to acquiesce in extreme close-up…fade out–THE END. 

Bright Side: Comic Relief: vignettes or dialogues re: Love: Romance, Familial, Fellowship with one’s congregation/Holy Spirit, peek through the clouds often–THE BEGINNING

New paradigm of “coverage” emerges in aftermath (as globalism or the “New World Order” has come after the World Wars).

copyright January 8, 2012

JOHN RUBENS