Health Tourism

No, we're not talking about a leisurely beach vacation somewhere overseas for your mental health, we're talking surgery.

The Canadians come here. The Brits favor India. The Indonesians go to Singapore, a shorter hop. The Jakarta Post explains:

Furthermore, a low standard of service tends to be offered in Indonesian hospitals and pharmacies. Patients are often forced to wait a long time to see a doctor. Consultations also often seem hurried due to the limited time doctors have.

Nurses seem just as busy, or unwilling to help, as doctors. In public hospitals, patients have to buy their own medicines or they will receive nothing and more often than not have to collect their own urine samples for testing.

The writer, a medical student, suggests that the government "nurture an organized health tourism sector".

The mind reels.

John Edwards wants to force us all in for checkups---your colonoscopy is due now, sir, ma'am-- but you figure any tour of his would at least offer a few amenities, given the size of his new house, and his attention to his hair. Then again, it might be the Two-Americas-Goes-Abroad tour, one standard of service for him, and a different one for everyone else. Your bathroom's down the hall.

Hillary as health tour guide. Consider how she ran the White House. Eat your broccoli, and no smoking:

"We tried not to be too harsh about it."...Mrs. Clinton, wearing the muted plaid suit she wore on inauguration day, sat on a red and gold brocade sofa in the Red Room.

Mute that plaid. Oh, but Bill gets a pass. Of course. Probably he will be on his own trip. Healthy or otherwise. Somewhere...else.

"We are trying to move toward healthy, fresh American food," Mrs. Clinton said. That includes broccoli, which was despised by George Bush. "We are big broccoli eaters," Mrs. Clinton said. "We do a lot of vegetables and a lot of fiber and a lot of fruit."

That includes the President. "I have to defend my husband," she said. "You know he gets an unfair rap. An occasional trip to a fast-food restaurant is not the worst of all possible sins."

A typical Clinton family meal, she said, might be broiled chicken breasts, steamed fresh vegetables, rice, a green salad, fruit and iced tea. If dessert is served, it is usually fruit-based.

Delicious and nutritious. Tastes good and is good for you. Defending Bill (because she must, he's often out of line you know), but the rest of us are at her mercy. Hillary's mercy.

Where do we in America go? (Conservatives get in line to the left, FOBs, FOHs to the healthcare version of the Lincoln Bedroom.)

Well, maybe not, maybe even her friends won't rate. And when you're playing god, you take the long view. To paraphrase the Clintons' esteemed Surgeon General from Arkansas, Joycelyn Elders...

"In the long run, we'll all probably die of something anyway".