Third, Find the Doctors

Average medical school loans are somewhere near half a million bucks. Nobody wants to do family care or high risk specialty. Where do we get the doctors? Make it another service branch like the military.  Want to be a doctor, can't afford it? You can pay us back with 6 years of public service, in public health care, at a fair salary. Then you can go off and do boob jobs for trophy wives.  Some will stay in as lifers. Need a specialist outside the "free" network, hire them on a contract basis. Can't cost more than Haliburton.

Remember, those big gun doctors will have a lot more time and freedom with standardized record keeping and reductions in statistically useless tests.

Fourth, Palliative Care for the Clearly Terminal

Been there, done that. Half of a typical patient's health care costs occur in the last week of life. Keeping people "alive" is a tough choice. I know the religious zealots will be up in arms, but some folks need to be let go. In my mind, Kevorkian was a hero. I hope somebody will pull my plug on me when I'm hopeless -- or give me enough morphine to where I don't care. The way our stupid laws are written, they can't give me the shot even if everybody responsible agrees. (Even if you have Stage IV pancreatic cancer you could become...an addict!) If you have enough $$ in the bank, you can do whatever you want to keep your loved one on the brink.

Want free health care? How about paying with service? You gotta agree to be an organ donor, give blood regularly, volunteer at a hospice, be part of a clinical trial, or be willing to accept transplant parts from a less than perfect donor.  (Where are all those helmet-less teenagers, doing 80 mph on their motorcycles when you really need a body part?)

If you've read thru this, you know it makes a lot of sense. You also know it will never happen. Not with a lawyer as President, and the power of the legal lobbies. You really want to get fixed, and you are broke -- commit a crime!  The really free health care in the U.S. is given to prisoners. When my wife was in intensive care for 3 weeks, half the pods in the ICU had prison guards or Border Patrol agents guarding them. Somehow, I don't think we have our priorities straight...