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Written by Richard Maxwell
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All your cares are whisked away in 2027 (from the May-June 2007 issue)
Down here in the United States (of America), we have the answer to everything. I know that's a fact because I heard that someone said it on our official government news outlet: Fox News. We are seldom bothered by "evidence" when it comes to a question of whether our firm beliefs might...just might...be on shaky ground.
A case in point, of course, is our healthcare "system." The rest of you
in the industrialized world, who seem to think that healthcare is
something that the national government should be involved in, are sadly
misguided, putting much too much emphasis on efficiency and good
outcomes. To help you understand what our way of looking at things can
lead to, consider one man's view of where we're headed.
A
formerly renowned futurist (name withheld at his request), defrocked
and disgruntled after predicting a "hurricane-free 2005" and Gordie
Howe's return to the Detroit Red Wings line-up in 2006, is hoping to
resurrect his glory days by looking at where healthcare will be in 20
years. The time frame, he hopes, will allow him some cover in the event
that things go in a different direction, while landing him on some talk
shows and selling a few books in the short run.
I've offered to help share his prognostications, and what follows are a few choice selections from his soon-to-be-published-if-any-publisher-at-all-can-be-found book, tentatively titled: Whither Medicine?: Where Medicine is Going?: Its Direction. He dropped them off on the way to buy a quick-pick lotto ticket.
The U.S. healthcare system
In 2027, the long-term goal of privatizing everything in this country will have been realized, including, as a shining star, the healthcare system. There will be two companies, after a great deal of consolidation, competing for everyone's business: Halliburton/HCA, and the smaller Blue Cross-Blue Shield United Aetna Hartford Disney Health and Entertainment Corp.
Cash will no longer exist, of course, but that chip in our forearms will have to register adequate assets when it is scanned by the financial greeter in the virtual doctor's office or the robo-paramedic who finds a victim next to an automated hover vehicle after the crash. Lack of funds...no treatment.
Should the patient expire as a consequence, one of the few remaining government services, the Soylent Green Sanitization Service, will respond, eventually. Compassion will not be dead, however, and the chip will notify the next-of-kin's chip.
Doctors
As some in the profession...sadly lacking vision...fear, physicians will be phased out as active participants in the system. The scanning industry's accelerated pace of innovation will continue, leading to the domination in the marketplace of the I-See-U from Halliburton Scan Industries LLC.
The I-See-U will perform a complete body scan in ten seconds, fully evaluating an individual's health and sending recommendations to his or her chip, which in turn will make the necessary appointments, request prescriptions, or make final arrangements, as appropriate, based on the findings and on financial status. The human touch will not go away, however, as the country's two remaining Registered Nurses will be available to offer comforting words from a selected list at $380 per syllable.
Drugs
There will be one pill, The Pill, offered by Halliburton Pharmaceuticals. It will be available only by prescription granted by the I-See-U, and will be prohibitively expensive, allowing natural selection to work its magic. Thanks to more reasonable patent laws, the generic version will be expected sometime after the turn of the next Millennium.
For those who are privileged to be able to afford it, The Pill will take care of any potential health problems, clearing the arteries, preventing obesity, making a laughing stock of diabetes, and stopping cancer in its tracks. To be effective, it will require the user to avoid exercise and eat in excess of 3000 trans-fat-laden calories a day. Its effects will be positively enhanced by smoking, showing Woody Allen in his film Sleeper to have been a prophet. The cigarette of choice...in fact the only cigarette available...will be the tar- and nicotine-enhanced, unfiltered Hally Gold Long, from Halliburton-R. J. Reynolds.
Technology
While the I-See-U will function as the ultimate diagnostician, there will still be a need for some occasional hands-on care. The current generation of robotic devices, such as the DaVinci Surgical System, will be looked back on with fondness and nostalgia by the artificially intelligent, freestanding, and self-programming devices of 2027.
The I-See-U sends a referral, of sorts, to the "doctor," which handles all of the scheduling—both its own and the patient's—rearranging her work schedule at one of the Wal Marts. This presents little challenge, since the I-See-U scanners and the robots are located exclusively in those same stores.
The Wal Marts will be so ubiquitous that it will no longer be possible to see one disappear from the rear-view video screen in the hovercraft without seeing another appear in the forward view. We will all work in one, and the one-size-fits-all blue vests will be both wrinkle-free and monogrammed.
For those included in the majority unable to afford The Pill, the robot will offer reasonably priced surgery, manipulation, or disposal, as appropriate, along with soothing words and a new music that will be capable of lowering both anxiety levels and IQs permanently. All "surgery" will be minimally invasive unless the device decides that it should not be. No one need worry about which way it goes, thanks to the music and/or The Pill, which, at the correct dosage, will be a very, very effective anesthetic, which brings us to...
Mental Health
Everyone will be very relaxed and extremely happy all of the time. The Pill will not be necessary for this. Talk therapy and psychoactive drugs will be distant memories, thanks primarily to the music and video entertainment chip located in each person's frontal lobe. That chip will also serve to edit and sort memories, making them quite pleasant, and will provide a targeted, controlled jolt of electricity if wayward thoughts crop up or non-acceptable behavior is contemplated. The I-See-U will have remote access to it, so there will be no need to worry about preventive maintenance.
Information
No need to give it a second thought (see above). The frontal lobe chip will offer all of the information that it determines one might need, if any. The I-See-U will have a subscription to the single remaining medical journal, the electronic The New Google Journal of Medicine, peer-reviewed by the I-See-U and published by Time-Warner-Halliburton-Elsevier.
Aw, yes, the future will be a happy time.
[Editor's note: By being selected as the cover story for the May-June 2007 issue, Richard's story has won him a 3M Littman Master Cardiology Stethoscope.]
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