Healthcare in the United States is ridiculously expensive and can actually lead to a higher average per-person cost than in countries with publicly funded systems. A new totally unlicensed Dr. Mario game, playable right in your browser, puts your own health plan into context by changing the puzzle game’s difficulty.
The game, called Dr. Mario Insurance, is a sort of guerrilla marketing effort to increase support and awareness for a Medicare for All healthcare system. To play, you enter your name, the type of healthcare plan you have, and your yearly deductible. Depending on what you select, you’ll start closer or farther away from the very top of the screen. With a PPO plan and a $2,000 yearly deductible, you only get a few lines to work with before the game is over–and your savings account is over.
The Dr. Mario game sees the eclectically employed hero trying to destroy viruses building up in someone’s system using a variety of color-coded medicines. While we may normally associate the high cost of the medical system with surgeries or hospital stays, it also certainly applies to pharmaceuticals. An Epipen–the device that can save people from anaphylactic shock–can cost hundreds of dollars.
We are 100% certain that Nintendo had nothing to do with this Dr. Mario game, and seeing as the company is quite litigious and tends to stay out of political situations, we recommend playing it before it’s inevitably taken down.
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