theartofthetangent

So like just about everyone else in these United States, I’ve been following the presidential elections.  And like everyone else, I’ve just about had enough.  But that’s beside the point and a tangent about how we should keep the campaigning confined to the election year is a blog of another color.  Anyhow, what gets me is that everyone keeps yapping on about health insurance.

Health insurance: though the name implies it, health insurance is not an assurance of health.  Just messing with you.  Anyway, I think the whole thing has become a bit overblown.  For the record, I don’t have health insurance.  And frankly, though I would like to have it, I DO NOT NEED IT.  A lot of people are claiming that medical coverage is a right of for every citizen.  Really?  Where in the Constitution did our founders or even the guys who added all the amendments after the Bill of Rights say that we have a right to free health care?  Please, if you know this, please leave a comment and let me know.  I’m always willing to learn something new.

Even with the point that it is not a right expressed in our documents that define those things, for some reason everyone thinks that it is indeed a right, and they and the candidates are clamoring to get something out there saying as such.  Both Obama and McCain’s ideas have some merit, but I’m not going to go into both of their stances.  There are plenty of fine political blogs here on today.com that have more than gone into it, so fell free to check one of those out if you need some background reading.  No, I can hand them something that will catch two political trophies with one fishing pole.  I now present to you REECARE.

Here’s the idea.  Many people are concerned  about the rising costs of medical care AND of college education.  So here is how one of our illustrious candidates can have their cake and eat it too.  The government sets up a program that would work vaguely like ROTC.  Med students would promise to serve three days a week for eight years at free medical clinics strategically set up across the USA upon graduating from med school.  Said med student would also have to promise to maintain a 2.5 GPA overall throughout their schooling.  If the grades are met as well as the service at the clinics, the government will pay said budding doctors’ way through med school.  Completely.

These free medical clinics would then offer treatment to any US citizen that does not have health coverage.  I say clinics, but they really could be complete hospitals all depending on the size of the particular area they occupy.   After all, we don’t want to deny surgeons, x-ray technicians, anesthesiologists, and the like from the free schooling.

Oh, yeah.  One other point… Much like the military, when the new doctor completes school, they will be assigned to a city.  You don’t get to pick.  But the upside is that since you are only working three days a week in the clinic, you can still have a practice or residency at another hospital.  You may say, “But Ree, it’s not fair that you have to go where the government tells you to!”  And I may respond thusly: Then you can pay for your own freaking education.  When said eight years are up, you can go practice medicine wherever you want.  If you don’t like the rules for the program, then don’t sign up for it.  Just like the military.

The other thing is this, even though the clinic is meant for people lacking health coverage, anyone could go to them.  It’s just that if you do have coverage, they’ll charge your coverage.  This will not deny someone who has coverage but is traveling out of their coverage area.  The other thing is that you could do away with the coverage for welfare recipients because they could simply take part in the free clinics, and the money that is already earmarked for that program could be rerouted to fund the hospitals and clinics run by the program.

Everyone wins.  Poor med students can get free schooling and poor people in general can get free medical treatment.  It’s win-win for a politician.  McCain… Obama… you need an adviser, get in touch with me and we’ll polish this one out.

My name is Ree and I approved this message.

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