What a Modern Health Care Plan Ought to Look Like

The so-called Health Care Bill has something to distress almost everybody. ESPRESSO spent significant time reading some early drafts of the HR 3200 (the Health Care Bill) and was appalled at some of the evils that the Democrats want to inflict on us, to say nothing of what the Repubicans want to do (see the cartoon at right). As with so many other important things, the government understands nothing except politics and the politics of health are sure to leave millions of Americans out in the cold; uncared for, without options or alternatives and stuck paying the highest bill price possible for care—one’s health and life and future, all because the usual suspects in Washington are too busy brown-nosing their owners instead of looking after voters.
So it’s with some deep disgust that we present the ideas below in hopes that at even now, people can posit what they want in a better, more just and more accessible health care system that’s fit for the twenty-first century. Many will vehemently disagree with these thoughts below; what’s important is to get some critical mass going and get heard by those in office.
1. A modern health care plan for Americans needs to start from the people up: with education about health, for starters. In a country where many youth don’t know how their bodies function, let alone how to care for themselves properly, it’s no surprise that there are too many unwanted pregnancies, STD cases, untreated problems that grow with time and a general lack of respect for health. Somebody ought to tell the people that healthy living equates to self respect and respecting yourself is a sane thing to do. That may nip a few problems in the bud before they start.
 A corollary to education is medical knowledge. The Soviets printed a book that was part of every household since World War II that was a kind of cross between the Merck Manual, Gray’s Anatomy and the Standard Pharmacopoeia, only more specific and detailed. It was originally intended for war medics in field hospitals and described symptoms, treatments, likely first aid and chronic support for people who may not be able to see a doctor for a long time. Every Russian school kid had to have one. Something like that, printed by the government and vetted by the Surgeon General of the United States could do much good.
2. The flip side of education should be a call by government for more med students in more medical schools. Medicine should be a growth industry with more med schools built and more incentives for students to become doctors and health providers.
We went to the moon in less than a decade after JFK issued a call and a deadline; we should do the same again with medicine and make sure that the next generation will have adequate numbers of doctors, nurses, med techs and support staff to take care of a growing population that may suffer from great natural disasters (earthquake, flood, hurricane, fire) in addition to the normal health  care needs of the populace. 
A well-oiled transportation system that can move medicines, men and materiél fast, when and where needed needs to be organized, too. It was obvious after Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast that we lack that system, and that must change. We already have some tools in place; the National Health Service Corps provides scholarships for students who want to go to medical school; they repay Uncle Sam with four years of service anywhere the fed sends them. This program needs to be expanded to include other kinds of health professionals. There ought to be reimbursement for tuition of med students at private schools if they agree to perform service for Uncle after graduation.
3. Since nothing is going to happen without the owners of society getting richer from the process, we need to provide a way for the greedy leeches at the top to make money from the health care program. Building hospitals and supplying Uncle Sam with the tools of the trade is a fine start in this regard, and perhaps incentivizing tech startups that will make the ever more fancy machines that will be needed as medicine becomes more technologically progressive is worthy, too. If enough of the "right people" know they can cash in the way the munitions makers and their satraps did during the Cold War, the Medical Industrial Complex—and comprehensive insurance for everybody—will arrive tomorrow.
 With any luck, we’ll put millions back to work in revitalized industries to make all these things and grow a middle class again like we did in the 1950s. In the short term, we ought to take a page from the Germans’ medical ideas from the early 20th century and give new life to old buildings by turning them into clinics and storage depots for medical supplies—for every neighborhood or township in the country.
4. Maybe the biggest change should be a change of vision; the American people aren’t respected enough by government and this is evident in much else besides the Health Care issue. Dick Cheney raged that we don’t have enough guts to fight a war for him or his oil buddies; Bob Dole despised our lack of rage at Bill Clinton’s sexcapades. Mr. Change himself referred to Americans as candidates for the Special Olympics. With thugs like these at the top, it’s no wonder that no one has thought to combine Health Care with Civil Defense in a time of war and act accordingly. Yet, we are at war with people who like to strike by surprise and kill thousands on the homefront. Tying advanced heatlh support ideas to successfully waging that war is long overdue.
5. There needs to be a money supply to pay for it all and this will come from taxing somebody. We should tax the purveyors of bad health first. Not just the usual tobacco and alcohol culprits—they’re taxed to death as it is—but the contributors to sloth and heart disease. The computer makers and peddlers of all the software, hardware and other ware that has turned millions of people into unhealthy couch potatoes ought to get a fair share of the med bills; and so should the fast food industry since their crappy rations are full of fat, chemicals and other preservatives that shorten life spans. The other likely candidate for a regressive tax should be cell phone companies,  the beef industry and sugar farmers and processors. Cancer, Heart disease and diabetes; three major killers in US society ought to pay to keep their customers alive awhile. Other likely candidates for direct taxation for health needs ought to include oil companies—major creators of asthma and other lung diseases; indirect taxation should be levied against the net (a penny to check your email, sir?) and the paper industry—a nickel a ream would add up fast.
We need to dump the hysteria and ideological BS surrounding this and other issues. People’s needs shouldn't be reduced to some shockjock’s nostrums about "socialized" medicine, especially if the schlock jock wouldn’t  know what socialism was if it bit him in the ass. We deserve better than that.
Our concerns need to be formed in plain language and government needs to listen. If that doesn’t happen, we can all count on occupying a grave a lot sooner than would otherwise be necessary.