In Washington D.C. the debate rages over healthcare for American citizens. I think healthcare is a great idea. I have issues with the way the government wants to mandate it. I have bigger issues with the way insurance companies like to put our lives into a formula on a spreadsheet and then tell our doctors what our course of treatment should be.

Hey, why go to medical school when you can learn to be an actuary without the added expense of years of study, residency, and malpractice insurance, right?

Well, that statement that you just read could be the biggest threat to our health as we get older and the health of our children and grandchildren. As our population ages, the need for more and more medical attention will arise.

The problem with that is more and more of our nation's best and brightest students aren't going into medicine. All that government red tape, trial lawyer intervention, and insurance shenanigans have taken the luster right out of that job description.

The Association of American Medical Colleges is suggesting in their publications that our nation could see almost 90,000 fewer doctors in the next seven years. As older physicians retire or just get fed up with the whole rigamarole there are fewer young physicians standing by to take their place.

As one gentleman I heard speak on the subject almost five years ago said, and I paraphrase, in the coming years, the only way an individual will get specialized or customized health care is if a member of their family is a doctor or a nurse.

If you think the waiting room is full now just think about how full it could be in the next seven years and just how much the quality of care will diminish as workloads and patient demands grow higher. It's going to be even worse in our state's rural areas where it's nearly impossible to attract doctors to practice already.

What's the solution? In my feeble disc jockey mind. I think we need to get politicians out of medicine. I think our government should provide care for those who need but not at the expense of those who already work hard to pay for their own healthcare.  I think attorneys and lawsuits against the medical profession should be strongly vetted by the court system to see if they aren't totally out of line.

I bet you have better ideas. Trust me, sitting and telling the computer screen the guy that wrote this is an idiot ain't gonna fix it. Put in your two cents. You might be sitting on the solution. Unless you're a politician, an insurance company, or a lawyer.

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