I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that it takes a certain amount of money to stay alive and not only just be alive, but to actually be able to live a life with some smidge of joy and enjoyment. "Money doesn't buy happiness," they say. Oh, how much I disagree with that statement.

Not only does money give you the ability to buy almost anything you set your eyes on, but in some cases, money can quite literally pay for a little plastic container which contains happiness itself- or as some of you might know it- Seratonin, or anti-depressants. Who would have thought that you could actually trade in a Benjamin for a bottle of concentrated happiness? No matter what you decide to spend your hard-earned money on, you are contributing to the notion that money buys a certain amount of happiness.

Whether you believe in this or not, it is a fact that the cost of being alive in our world today is beyond unreasonable. I never really had this issue or understood just how much money it takes to maintain the ability to continue living until I was faced with a plethora of medical issues. In the United States, if you happen to not have health insurance, you might as well rent a plot at the cemetery- because no matter what health crisis you are faced with, the medical bills from all those doctors visits and prescriptions will no doubt send you straight to the grave.

For those lucky individuals with health insurance, life isn't that much cheaper. Let me fill you in on a story of how a five-minute CAT scan in the emergency room hit me with a four thousand dollar bill. The story is simple- I fell off my bed, hit my head against my nightstand and got a concussion. Being an avid believer of not wanting to die from my concussion, I drove to the local emergency room to make sure my brain wasn't scrambled like your morning eggs. Upon arriving, I waited about two hours to even be seen by a doctor- who, might I mention, only spoke to me for about ten minutes. Then, I was sent back into the waiting room to continue waiting, until finally, what felt like a century later, I was once again taken back in order to have a CAT scan on my head to make sure I wasn't about to pass out for good.

Leaving the emergency room- having spent four hours waiting, and about fifteen minutes with doctors, I would have never thought I would be asked to pay four thousand dollars. I'm sorry, but, for the average American, that is a large amount of money, and an unnecessary amount to be paying.

The cost of being alive, and staying alive, is outrageous. People would rather stay sick and miserable than even attempt to go to the doctor for help. That shows a lot about our society and our healthcare here in the United States.

Being alive should not be a privilege, it's a right -a right given to us at birth- and no amount of money should get in the way of that.