Photo by Marcellina.

For the Washington Post, Dave Jamieson profiles one Kenny Farnsworth, a homeless, chronically ill man who represents a chronic problem for hospitals and emergency medical care professionals in the District, a man who has come to be known as “the Burpin’ Man” or “the Choker” for his rather chronic gastrointestinal and throat blockage problems, respectively. Or, perhaps more likely, for his chronic overuse of the emergency room.

Over the years, he has suffered from convulsive seizures; a deviated septum; pancreatitis; gastritis; two perforated ulcers; a hernia; lymphedema, which causes swelling in his legs; acid reflux disease; and irritable bowel syndrome. His problems have run literally from his head, where he once suffered a skull fracture, to his feet, which are two different sizes, thanks to some bone removal after a break in his left foot.

None of those problems is a minor one. If you, reader, developed pancreatitis, whatever-the-awful that is, or needed to have your spleen removed but-quick, you too might avail yourself of the city’s public health care services. Farnsworth would be a hypochondriac, were it not for the serious medical ailments he has also endured. Nevertheless, Jamieson’s character sketch summarizes the argument that you might have heard from your conservative grandfather over the Thanksgiving dinner table about the g-d leeches who ruin it for everyone else. Jamieson writes that medical care professionals even have a term for these problem-types who use the emergency room like it was their medicine cabinet.