Sunday, March 13, 2022

Walmart Colonoscopies

If there were any sanity in this world, seeking medical services would be no more complicated than shopping for groceries, choosing a place to take the family for burgers, or getting an oil change. And before you say that medicare is more sophisticated and complex, so are smartphones and computers.

Such a radical philosophical change in the ideology of medical care would not yield overnight miracles. It would take time. But how long has the current ideology been trying to find a solution? I still remember sitting in a dark, foreboding, Detol-smelling, mausoleaum-like waiting room at St. Joseph's Hospital, back in 1957, for what seemed like hours because my mother stepped on a rusty nail and needed a tetanus shot. And that was when my parents used to buy private medical insurance. I can't, in my lifetime, remember a time when a visit to a hospital emergency ward wasn't a form of pure hell.

Hospitals should be more like hotels, or nightclubs. The waiting rooms should be inviting, not something like a bus terminal. Have a wet bar and a snack menu. Have some live entertainment, not some muted TV set broadcasting junk news. Toys for the kids. Or even a pool and a sauna.

If that requires the profit motive, so be it.

It's time to eliminate ALL government interference with medical care, including licensing.

Let the market sort it out. In ten years, you'll be able to go to Walmart or Toys'R'Us for broken bones and stitches.

The dying (gone?) muffler shops can re-tool to provide colonoscopies, and if there are any photo studios left, they can re-tool to provide diagnostic imaging, etc.

No appointments will be necessary unless some kind of prep is required.

Open up the market for dentistry, eye care, hearing aids, etc.

Crucially, the practice of occupational licensing must be abolished. Competition and innovation should not be shackled.

Once the protectionist licensing regime is eliminated, all the doctors we hear about, who are driving cabs, can rent space and open up a shop.

The good ones will succeed and set an example for competitors.

The bad ones will kill all their patients and go back to taxi driving.

We can continue to dream that some version of medical socialism is the answer, and continue to pretend we are surprised when it doesn't fucking work.

Imagine if the computer/communications industry had been governed by the same ideology that dominates the field of medicine.

We would still be using acoustic couplers IF we could afford personal computing devices.

Look. Socialism has been tried in so many places and for such a long time, you would think people had grown sick to death of its obnoxious tenacity. The only difference between Bible-thumpers and socialists these days is that the socialists are in almost complete control of the coercive apparatus of the state. And still, we are bombarded with the obtuse crud that the state idolotrists, like those who write the kind of crud we read in the Toronto Star, devoutly believe is the solution.

"The obvious solution to this massive backlog would be a significant increase in government funding and better use of existing public facilities."

Yes, The solution is ALWAYS obvious to these mystics of socialism. Like Sockboy, they think money grows on trees.

Long banned in Ontario, private hospitals could soon reappear


Note:

I use the word "socialism" a lot, but it's not really accurate. The correct word to use is "statism," defined as,

The principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.

The reason I use "socialism" is because, I think, it means more to most people than "statism." It's a more familar word, however, if you give it a moment's thought, that the definition of "statism" applies with equal validity to the ideology upon which most political parties are rooted.

Take your pick, Canadian Liberals or American Democrats. Are they not all statists? Most of your city councillors are statists. "liberal," in the current use of the word, means "statist." So does "green," "communist," "fascist," and "Nazi."

EVERY ONE OF THEM have the same sine qua non.

Statism.

There is one ideology that differs.

Capitalism.


Lighten up.

THIS...

was created by capitalism.

1 comment:

  1. https://mishtalk.com/economics/used-car-are-prices-up-42-percent-in-one-year-have-they-finally-peaked

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