Triage, Homestyle

There's something screwy around here
--Elmer Fudd
____________

We here at Ranger are not survivalists, but some people who are better-qualified to be economic cassandras are sure sounding like them.

Marketwatch.com has recently offered several pieces on coupon-clipping, keeping in mind that these are readers for whom coupons usually mean interest on their securities. Their audience is not largely composed of food stamp recipients -- those who have about $100 to spend at their grocer each month.

Next we saw a review for the book, Patients Beyond Borders: Everybody's Guide to Affordable, World-class Medical Tourism, described as "the first comprehensive guide for Americans facing long-term financial insecurity due to challenging medical conditions." The name riffs on Doctors Without Borders [Medicins Sans Frontieres], the group that provides urgent medical care abroad to victims of war and disaster.

Medical tourism used to be for the privileged. The plastic surgery trip to Mexico or South America was a popular jaunt, as the participant came back glowing and looking so much better without having to 'fess up to the actual work done. Ditto cosmetic dentistry. But these were discretionary expenses, not medical necessities. This author speaks to those who must travel for needed care.

The New York Times ran a piece some months ago about a medical charity caravan of health care professional which tours the West Virginia countryside once a moth, providing urgent medical care to residents who would otherwise go unserved. They could not treat all with need, and had to turn away many patients each time.

This is back in the U.S.A., where it seems we are ripe for our own version of Doctors Without Borders. Meanwhile, billions of dollars are sunk into a desert folly, which creates more patients daily to be tended, or not, by our already stressed health care system.

That ain't right, to quote one of our presidential candidates.

Looking through some old milblogs this morning, which are often so eloquent and direct, and found the following soldier's statement:

We are an isolationist, myopic country with tremendous arrogance and a complete misunderstanding of the depth of what we are involved in. We are not global citizens, but we are global consumers. The fact is that we do actually look down on the rest of the world. The rest of the world gazes back at us in amazement, wondering what in the hell we are thinking about to feel so self-righteous (billandbobsadventure, 12/17/07).

It's probably not our health care system.

______________

Contribute to the Story Project.

You don't have to be a veteran, or a citizen --
just someone with a perspective on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Say who you are, what you think
and why you think it, here: