WHAT AIL'S THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ??
Diagnosing the aliment that health care is suffering from, has been tough for the people who govern and finance the system: the medical staff who toil 24/7 inside the air tight bubble, the poor ignorant guinea pigs who offer themselves for scientific treatments, and the hungry corporations who feed and poison the common man with their toxic harmful processed food products. All the above four agencies are inside the system. To arrive at the differential diagnosis, someone impartial and not connected with the system has to study in depth from outside. It is pretty easy, and a piece of cake for a trained Value engineer and creative Industrial engineer like myself, to take in the total picture of all the elements involved and process them to evolve a workable practical solution. Since this solution is so far advanced and 25 years ahead of its time that the concerned parties may find it difficult to accept and implement it right now, though eventually this is the only way out for everyone involved. We will have to think out of the box to arrive at the best possible solution to this century old problem of health care.
WAIT AND WATCH TACTIC
Let us start with the world’s top most
troublesome problem as an analogy – Smuggling of drugs. How are we tackling it
today? By policing it, chasing it after the act has been committed. We wait for
the drug lords to buy the stuff off the farmers, wait for them to process it
and do value addition to it, again wait for them to smuggle it across the
borders in ever new ways. We wait for intelligence tips to arrive, and yet
again wait for the actual stuff to arrive to catch it, if we can.
Thousands of police officers, border security
forces, k-nine units, cars and helicopters by the hundreds are employed to do
this job today. If not billions but many trillions of dollars are spent every
year unsuccessfully in the effort to contain this drug problem. In vain goes
all this herculean effort because our children are still doing drugs and
bringing untold misery into the families involved. As a government agency, we
ought to be proactive and one step ahead of the drug lords to beat them at
their game. The solution is very simple. Who is buying up 90% of the world’s
coffee? Starbucks and Tim Horton’s & MacDonald’s. Just like them we go out
and procure 98% of the raw heroin/poppy from the farmers and do what we want to
do. We could even ask the farmers to harvest the crops much before they
blossomed since we intend to destroy them. Ship it to an undisclosed location
and dispose it off, by burning it and generating power. Alternately process it
for medicinal purpose and huge governmental profits.I would go a step further to the very root of the epidemic, by procuring the poppy seeds themselves and destroying them systematically and clandestinely. In a matter of three to five crop cycles poppy seeds can be in the extinct category. We have to think out of the box for creative solutions.
This would render most of the police force
surplus to be utilized in other areas. They would still be required to track
down the small time individual poppy growers. Trillions of dollars would become
available for critical health care management. Now that you have abundant
funds, let’s see how to spend a fraction of it to get extraordinary results.
Coming back to our key issue of health care
management, we observe that the poor guinea pigs has been given absolute
freedom to do as they like, even if it means going on the road to destruction,
and expecting the big brother, their governments, to rescue them later with all
paid for health care plans, while they continue with bad habits. The
governing agency is too busy with hundreds of higher ranking international
priorities, including re-election to office; hence this issue takes a back seat
in their agendas. The highly talented medical staff is busy doing what they
have been trained for; treating the human body after the DAMAGE has been done.
Like our police force they wait and watch till the people fall sick, and the
guinea pigs to be carried into the hospitals. Additionally these doctors are
always treating the symptoms, the effect, in the body and not the cause of
sickness, which happens to be beyond their realm and scope of work. Finally the
profit hungry corporations are responsible for all the degeneration caused to
the common man’s health. Who is going to hold them accountable? They have been
getting away very easily till now, but time has come to put an end to all this
mess.
DEFAULTING CORPORATIONS ASKED TO FIX UP THE
DAMAGE
Time
has come to take a peep into the CRYSTAL BALL for the most of the
world. The doctor – medicine scene has
degenerated beyond repair. It has reached levels of INSANITY.
These
food manufacturers continue marketing richer and bigger portions again and
again, expecting different results every time.
In short they have embraced SELF DEFEATING policies and egoistic
attitudes, that their corporations are more important than the nation. The
picture changed radically for worse, by 2020, which is just around the corner.
Like the housing market, this bubble burst with such catastrophic effects, that
some harsh steps had to be taken, within the basic frame work of total freedom.
The best think tanks in the world were summoned
to find innovative solutions to this devastating problem. They brain stormed
and came up with these following proposals. The anti-lobbying law was enacted
and passed banning any spending by these hungry corporations on lobbying of
every kind, direct or indirect. Another sub law was added to the above, which
made it legal, for the affected public and the governments to sue these
companies for playing with health of future citizens of the nation, for
staggering compensations.
EMPOWERING THE PUBLIC & PRIVATIZING HEALTH CARE
The federal taxes for personal incomes and
corporate profits were marginally reduced and the health care plans
dissolved. The message was clear. Here,
take your money and manage your own health with your very own personalized
health care plans.
In lieu of the reduced corporate taxes the
corporations were asked to take up the responsibility of health care management
and expenses. The law makers additionally argued on the following premises. If
the auto manufacturers are compelled to recall millions of defective and unsafe
vehicles which could possibly lead to fatalities down the road, then why not
apply the same logic to the food manufacturers.
The
food and liquor manufacturing companies were directed to take over the
hospitals and fix up their mistakes of misleading the innocent youth on the
fatally wrong path. They were required to manage clinics and hospitals, with
the profits they made off the poor gullible public, who were Hexed by these
very corporations with their false propaganda.
The
hospital for mouth and lung diseases was allocated to the tobacco companies.
The
hospital for obesity and heart diseases was offloaded on to the food
corporations and liquor commissions.
The
diabetic clinics were handed over to coffee cafes, tea kiosks, chocolate
companies, and candy manufacturers.
The
mental health institutions were forced upon meat processing and gaming
corporations.
Thus
the government washed off their hands from the painful and perpetual issues of
health care, its cost-burden and management. This way a major catastrophe was
averted very smartly and profitably. The above innovative change was a utopian
step for the troubled West.
TRANSPARENT PREMISE
It
worked because these companies managed their hospitals and clinics very
professionally and effectively, keeping the same philosophy of COUSTOMER FIRST.
They adopted a unique pattern of admitting patients into the clinics and
hospitals. They adopted a two window system: PAYING window and NON-PAYING
window. The paying window was reserved strictly for indolent, alcoholics,
smokers, overweight, and addiction prone public. The non-paying window was
reserved for active, teetotalers, nonsmokers, lean and addiction free public.
The premise of this system was transparent and simple. If a person could afford
rich foods, exotic liquors, expensive cigarettes and luxurious cars then he
could afford to pay for his costly illness and sickness too. These companies
were happy making additional profits off the rich man which helped pay for the
poor nonpaying patients who truly required the expensive treatments. It did not
make sense with these companies that people should consume in large quantities,
stick with harmful habits, and ask for medical treatments at the same time. For
example a chain smoker would demand medical treatment for his asthma/throat
cancer, how insane is this premise.
It
was like filling up water, in a bucket which had big holes at the bottom. Why
would anyone use such a defective vessel, to fill up and truly believe that it
will fill up at some point of time? It was akin to try and button up your
jacket only to find out that it has a zipper for closing up.
“These
coarse people of bad habits and shallow judgments do not deserve such a
beautiful and anatomical a structure as the human body. They deserve merely a
sack to put in food and let out again.” I fully agree with LalaHardyal who
wrote this many years ago.
PREVENTIVE MEDICINE
These
corporations additionally & cleverly leased out all the health clubs and fitness
gymnasiums in the country. It was free for all, but mandatory for the
non-paying clients to use them on a regular basis. It became more important to
prevent than to cure. Hence 80% of the effort was spent on prevention and just
20% on curing the malady. This major paradigm shift brought down the total cost
of health care drastically. The idea is that the doctor takes a back seat and
allows the common public to take personal responsibility of their health. The
Doctor was supposed to be a coach/counselor and that was the original idea to
have family doctors to help in preventing the diseases rather than curing them.
Today
it does makes sense with the governments handing out free health care plans, no
questions asked. If they ever did question, then their governments would be
voted out of power, on the basis of discrimination. This is the key word. The
power of the public to black mail the governments. The future of these
governments can be seen in the crystal ball.
We
do not need another Nostradamus to tell us what is going to happen 20 or 30
years from now. The writing is on the wall, for every one of us to read, if we
want to. This global writing too is heavily coded and to get the real meaning
it must be deciphered locally.
Personally, I feel the above utopian approach and health
care model, has to be tried out in an educated manageable advanced country like Norway or Switzerland
first to make a success story and then the rest of the world will line up to borrow the concept, of course at a high
cost and perpetual royalties for life. My intuition says that sooner or later
the world has to come to its knees begging for such a unique solution to the
most pressing and financially draining problem. How do the industrial
manufacturers maintain their factories/plants & stay ahead of their
competitors? Naturally by following the same very preventive maintenance
concept they stay ahead. It should definitely work in the Medical field too
equally well. I am suggesting a pilot project on a country level as we do in
any engineering field. I have spearheaded numerous committees at my steel company to help evaluate the feasibility of major new projects. One noteworthy project was the setting up of new 10 million tonne steel plant on the eastern coast of India. After my findings and in-depth study it was scrapped ceremoniously. I have been the official Think Tank for all Value Engineering workshops/teams, apart from my normal routine.
Rohit Khanna - Author of Futuristic health care management, Today.
