Okay, ready yourselves fellow veterans. I am going to suggest a three-pointer from, “downtown,” as the basketball sportscasters tag a long shot.

Did you know that Lyndon Johnson modeled our Medicare system of care and delivery after the Canadian model? They actually helped us set up the whole program in 1965. And now we buy are drugs in bulk and at a discount from them. I guess this is how we returned the favor.
The primary distinction is that they and most all of the “emerging democracies” that we are defending around the world all provide universal coverage and they sure do not call it socialism. Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, all use private hospitals– not the goofy,near socialist, non-profits that we prop up. Even the new Czech Republic, that we vehemently defend, offers free health care to all. Anyone want to guess who is paying for health care in Iraq?

Did you know that many of the pharmaceutical remedies that the Veterans Health Care system prescribes, come from Canada?

Wall Street Journal, in 2002, published a comparison of the cost of drugs that the VA pays compared to Medicare and the balance of the ungodly profitable private health care delivery entities. The gap makes one gasp. One example tells all, as so many were similar.

One year supply of Prozac:( you know, the drug we now prescribe for troops before they go into combat). is about $140.oo for the VA. It is approximately $390.oo for the rest of the loyalists to the current usurious system.

So, why not just bring in Canada as a permanent trade partner, like China, cheap clothes, cheap electronic, cheap drugs, all the same eh?

And here is the 3-pointer. With a permanent pact for drugs at a discount from Canada, we can by-pass the American Pharmaceutical Dynasty, and provide free health care to ALL veterans and their families. I mean All veterans who serve at least 3 years.

This would account for millions of citizens and their families, and save more millions by not using Medicare. It would fly right over bi-partisan poppycock that is going to be with us through Christmas and beyond. What veteran is going to turn down free health care because of political ideology? And can you imagine the impact on the recruiting efforts that are going to be a real uphill battle in the next year or two?

In lieu of the platitudinous, “support the troops” bumper stickers, we could offer our men and women, who put themselves in harms way, something tangible and lasting. Our allies do. And the nations we defend do. Why not the U.S of A that declares itself to be constitutionally formed for equality?

With the Veterans Administration being the current gold standard for electronic medical records, they are prepared to fill this task. Cripes, they could even sell their software, like Windows 7, to all the others who have done little since 1965, save, bilk the system.

Health care for all veterans and their families would add a whole new dimension to the Hippocratic Oath of, “Do no harm.” Not to mention the expanded meaning of “Semper Fidelis.”