The past two days I’ve seen three people missing a total of four legs. Today I saw a double amputee, yesterday I saw two singles. The one that sticks in my head is the man in the wheelchair outside the LIRR escalators into Penn Station. The stump of his right leg was swollen around the truncated end of his lower leg bones, a ring of blotchy purple flesh about the diameter of a basketball. He was drinking a 32oz soda from McDonalds and smoking a cigarette.

Even if the Patients’ Bill of Rights passes, it will only help those who can afford to see a doctor. None of these people looked as if they could afford health care, an economic reality quantified by their missing limbs.

Last night I saw the Mike’s Hard Lemonade Lumberjack ad where one man chops off his own leg, then a second man buys the first a drink. I didn’t laugh.