Supporting Gellner's model of capitalism - economy as societal binder with education spiking alongside religion or ideology, I see medicine as another. For the States, I aspire the post-Superpower version glimpsed by Vivek Ramaswarmy in 2021's Nation of Victims, indispensable to the world as cultural epicenter. Technology, art, cuisine, entertainment, humanities, and the medical establishment all standards visited for melting pot bounties. Corrupting of our vein of Capitalism is what I label the "Second Dark Ages" - late 1990's and surrender of America to lawyers and psychiatrists for its mindset, morality, and greed.

     Every arena of our government and wealth is seized or commandeered by lawyers. Currently the Executive Branch has a leader not of the profession whose disproportionate vilification proceeded his nomination according to a healthy number of politicos. America's ideology and its independent, freethinking soul is corrupted by a ceaseless 'them v us' mechanism where nothing (including a President) gets assessment on salient qualities. Instead a 100% pro- or anti- platform resembles always a legal firm. This dominates culture via the algorithm, social media, news media, and anything, rather trivial or of deep importance.

     Impacting the Medical System first is insurance due to malpractice and malingering. The "Suing Industry" brought to prominence in the 1990's has devastated the establishment. Prior to it in the late 1980's - early 1990's poor citizens like myself or friends then knew we could receive equitable health care. Lawyer domination destroyed this. I would be remiss to ignore the exclusionary excesses of corporate universities and the uncanny paychecks endorsed by those inside the MDA. Quantification still points to the BAR.

     Speaking out my window of experience: when we needed care, going to a doctor or emergency room normally involved an uncomfortable but honest visit to a business office. Informing the provider our income, we would experience a level of care like anyone. The difference came at the billing department's discretion. Many emergency room trips were written off as losses with a nod, particularly for people like my friend Tracey, a young mother of two with an employed husband and part-time job. Co-pays were nominal then and an installment of 20.00 a month on a bill any-sized kept collections at bay and credit unassailable for us uninsured.

     By 1999 that collapsed to rubble. Co-pays soared above affordability for many. My employer insurance premium beginning in 1994 at 24.00 per month now hovered 200.00. Insurances for hospitals due to myriad malpractice suits and payout hungry malingers drove costs to patients scatter-shot. Proactive measures like "Hospitalists" (Niles, 2021) arrived, safeguarding employers while maximizing profit. Pushing the bottoms beneath the floors, lines lengthened at Community Clinics and Planned Parenthoods.

     Psychiatry exploded twofold in the 1990's with psychotropics and ADD/ADHD medication proliferation. 1970's neuroscience foretold the era's kids' brains forming askew from daily screen time, a prophecy forgotten when the teens and beyond were unable to read and recall a written page without medication. Adderall being a molecule from cocaine which resembles Methamphetamine but cheaper and for many induces a similar focused euphoric state as Percocet or Heroin, the road to an Opioid Epidemic. For many ADD pills were a boon to their lives and salvation from possible incarceration or premature death.

     Dark sister to this was the psychotropics explosion. "Prozac Nation" ran amok with prescription meds taking ad space for the first ever in prime-time. Millions turned to pills for depression, anxiety, psychosis, mania, schizophrenia, or any other mental malady to the point unhappiness, seemingly, was a condition patients thought pills would solve. Deadly side-effects like suicides in droves, cancers, swollen breasts in pubescent boys, permanent sexual dysfunction, cardiac issues, and a host of others outweighed the impetus. Pandora's Box here was the Pill Industry with every- and anything being advertised on TV and between content online from penis problems to bed-wetting.

     Added to the American belief we fix our mental, physical, and spiritual health via medicines is the damaging concept of "disease" on compulsory issues like obesity. This subtracted personal responsibility once again and promoted many into the coveted victim role. The need for Primary Prevention (Niles) - avoiding the development of a disease, in other words proactive or active behavior, attacking the issues causing unhappiness or obesity through lifestyle change, could be avoided citing medical excuses. The prescriptions boomed as did co-pays, group rates, premiums, and deaths.

     The need for Universal Healthcare is tantamount to that for clean water or food. Each body treated exactly as the preceding or following in queue. No acceptance of sub-par applicants in the industry of medicine regardless of circumstance. Life and health-saving disallows favoritism or sympathy voting. Only merit counts in this venue.

     Socialized Medicine seems a clear solution for many. Formerly residing in Amsterdam and Rotterdam I am less inclined to jump onto that particular bandwagon. Every Dutch person I surveyed circa 1998 would exit Holland permanently for our country. I write aware the grass is always greener, however each cited the freedoms factor. They abandoned 70% of their pay before receiving it. Healthy 20-year olds who, for example, paid for the care of chain-smoking 50-somethings who used alcohol and abused heroin until the government provision to hinder premature death. This does not suit the civilization whose borders overflow with prospective tenants endlessly to my mind.

     Having a 10% charitable taxation loophole built into our Internal Revenue system, the importance of sharing is basic to the American experiment. Healthcare is a mandatory concern. Societal homeostasis is a Venn Diagram space where charity and public security overlap. Free Market preservation is paramount importance and I am loath to seepage of Marxism. Libertarian as I am we must provide healthcare an exception upon approach. This is where the rubber meets the road for myself in not catering to America's lawyer-derived mentality.

     Distribution based on an important derivative number - income factored with fiscal ACCUMULATION could pave a solution. A billionaire pays proportional percentage regarding healthcare - millions, as do numerous millionaires. Again, accrued funds, not sole income-base so even inherited wealth would contribute to the pay situation, which would affect down to most stratifications. The poorest of the poor would pay commensurate average, even if that were five dollars.

     Hospitals generating income beyond a reachable sum would require a satellite in an at-risk area with M.D.s required to do rotations, prices of services at sliding-scales, not further levies.

     Facilities need to be multidisciplinary. Traditional medicine has embraced other modalities like exercise science, massage therapy, chiropractics, even yoga for improvement of overall health - holistic. Disadvantaged areas could benefit greatly from these being introduced to their environments. Nutritionists, estheticians, and other occupations that service the longevity and well-being of our bodies could be there for our citizens and serve as a global standard for healthcare.

     The quality of healthcare since the Second Dark Ages has, I believe for the majority of citizens been of lesser caliber. The need to get a greater quota of bodies through revolving doors has been a subject of ire decades now. Hospitalists notoriously work to excise patients from their beds to avoid insurance losses, even at the expense of palliative care for example.

     Disadvantage to impoverished communities primarily concerns access. Distance, particularly in emergent scenes can prove fatal. A situation like the annex I described could address this.

      Building charity into our system with Medicine as the exception makes sense, and this is an aggressive non-Socialist basing his judgement on a lifetime of observation and fairly recent events. This dogmatic shift could only begin with a united front. American culture must cease the un-winnable war with itself.

​

​

​

​

​

Works Cited

Ramaswarmy, Vivek, Nation Of Victims, 2021

Niles Textbook, History and Overview of the U.S. Healthcare System, 2021

​

​

​