MAKING A HEALTHY PATIENT SICK
IT AIN’T BROKE; LET'S FIX IT ANYWAY
“Doctor, I’m feeling better than I have felt in four years.”
“I know you think you feel healthy, look healthy, and your weight is ideal. But trust me, I know better than you, and I can see you are not well; you’re sick. But I can cure you.”
“But doctor, I had a full physical and a major checkup. Even my blood pressure is perfect.”
“But what about your resting heart rate?”
“It’s 49.”
“Doesn’t matter, I will make your health the world's envy. I will give you a big, beautiful, clean bill of health the likes of which the world has never known. Trust me.”
“But I have already gotten a clean bill of health, my other doctor, Joe, has taken good care of me and my health.”
“ The Sleepy One? Bah, humbug. Here, take this medicine and shut up.”
This is a story about a Doctor who wandered through a metaphorical town, seeking healthy patients to make them sick.
“ I know you’re feeling fine; now you’re healthy and robust. Are you able to do all the things that you want to do? Let me tell you, health is overrated. You need to have a little pain to appreciate being healthy.”
Amazingly, he found people so overcome by delusion and frankly so in love with that particular doctor that they said, “That sounds like an excellent opportunity, doctor, to discover just how much pain we can take. After all this, doctor, Dr. T, was sent to us by God. He will take from us to give us something beautiful after the pain.”
Millions of people signed up for Dr. T’s treatment, although it was radical, not as radical as bloodletting. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, anthropologists will ask, “Why did so many people act against their best interests?”
The first thing Doctor T did was to cancel everyone’s health insurance. “Who needs health insurance when you have me and my magical elixir. Nobody knows more about health than I do. I know more about health than all the medical scientists in the world. My uncle was a physicist who taught at a prestigious university. What more information do you need about my fitness to serve? I’m the candy man, and the candy man can because he mixes it with love and makes the world go ‘round.”
Over 30% of the population signed on with Doctor T and turned over their excellent health to his radical cure for nonexistent diseases.
Almost overnight, the entire population’s health took an awful turn for the worse. All because some knackered members of society were so taken with the absurd sales pitch of the doctor who, it was later discovered, was not even a doctor; instead, he was a nasty conman who had made his living separating millions of Americans from their pocketbooks.
As more people fell ill, the question that rose on everybody’s lips was, “How dumb must you be to believe a crooked doctor with no credentials? ” Some people had master’s and JD degrees from reputable universities. Unfortunately, although they had passed the bar and other high-level exams, most had flunked common sense. As the doctor shared in some of their most cherished prejudices, and because he was a member of their “tribe”, they felt they had a duty to follow him and obey even his more ridiculous commands.
Then, after most of the population had gotten gravely ill, the doctor said, “That was successful. Why don’t we tackle the nation’s economy and fuse some energy into the markets? First, we levy tariffs on all our friends and coddle our enemies. Of course, you might suffer initially, but think of the big, beautiful rewards you will have with me at the helm!”
What could go wrong?
