"Don't be so impatient," said Comstock. "Here! Read this!" This was a newspaper article that reported a study by the Centers
for Disease Control showed that of 35 million people hospitalized last year, almost
two million got worse because of exposure to unsanitary hospital procedures. "See!
Even if we get them through surgery," said Comstock, "They'll die in the
hospitals anyhow! Isn't that wonderful!" Wonderful
wasn't exactly the word I had in mind.
"Aren't doctors supposed to make people healthier?" I
brazenly asked.
"I guess we can do that too while we're making money,"
said Comstock, thoughtfully stringing out his scheme. "But making people
healthy isn't as financially productive as not growing crops." He thrust yet
another newspaper article at me. During the past decade, the Department of
Agriculture paid more than $200 billion in subsidies to farmers, about
three-fourths of them agricorporations; about $2 billion of that was for
subsidies to individuals and corporations not to do any farming. Farmers and
agricorporations merely had to prove they once farmed the land. They could even
sell 40 acres to a sub-developer to build houses, and entice future homeowners
with seemingly eternal payments for not having race paddies in their basements.
Comstock even showed me governmental data that revealed that dozens of members
of Congress were getting annual six-figure subsidies. Rep. Stephen Fincher, a
Tea Party Republican from Tennessee, even took more than $3.3 million in farm
subsidies, while calling for a significant decrease in the food stamp program for
the poor.
"So, that's the scam," I said. "You're not going to
grow rice so you can make more money?"
"You fall off the turnip truck?" he asked. "I'm not doing
surgery!"
"That's good news," I sighed.
"Darn right!" he patriotically exclaimed. "With every
doctor wanting to get the big bucks from surgery, there's a glut of surgeons.
Because of competition, us surgeons can't make as much from one surgery as
before, so we have to do more surgeries just to stay even. That's more work for
us. More time in hospitals. More deaths from surgery. More deaths from hospital
care. Higher insurance rates. That forces us to do even more surgeries to keep
up. That's definitely not in the
nation's interest." I agreed.
"But the government can fix it!" said a beaming
Comstock, former surgeon-turned-oil-entrepreneur. "All the government has to do
is pay us not to perform surgery, and
you'll see happier doctors. There might even be a few lives that are saved in
the process."
A noble thought, I agreed. A very noble thought.
[Dr. Brasch
isn't a physician or a farmer, but he has asked his editor to pay him for not writing
his weekly column. He claims there are already too many people who think they're
columnists, and overproduction diminishes his value--so a subsidy is the best
solution. His latest book is Fracking
Pennsylvania, available at local bookstores, amazon.com, and
barnesandnoble.com]
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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