CASINO CARE

As a physician, I must admit I am the first to complain about our collapsing health care system. I complain to my colleagues, my patients and my wife. And yet as physicians who are on the front lines of this negotiating jihad we call health care, we rarely offer up any solutions or suggestions. We typically leave that to our elected officials and then complain bitterly about the fiscal impact on our medical practices.

So I am proposing a solution, one that combines the risks of our medical interests with that of America’s fastest growing risk industry: the future of medicine lies within the institution of gambling. Yes, you heard me right. It is one of the most profitable businesses this country has ever known. Casinos always make a ton of money, and because of this they continue to pop up all over the place (usually on a Native American reservation).

The way to fix the healthcare system is to combine casinos with medical clinics.
Sounds crazy? It isn’t. Casinos are filled with the same patients who fill my office anyway. Just double the size of our waiting rooms and fill them with slot machines. The rest is magic. The same people who complain that they have no money for medication will now be smoking and joking as they gamble away right in front of your receptionist. We can charge them nothing because we’ll get it back tenfold from their gambling outcomes. You heard me right: free medical care!

I see a time where “casino care” will be the most popular medical practice in the area. I’ll hire some of those Vegas-type waitresses to hand out Viagra, Aricept or Celebrex samples. I guarantee the pharmaceutical companies will be sponsors and my patients will love it.

The slots will be just the beginning. I predict that as “casino care” grows in popularity (join our open-enrollment lottery contest), I can add hotel suites; we’ll call them Soylent Green Rooms. Better yet, we can add nursing homes with names like Anoxic Gardens or Crepitus Creek Condominiums. We may want to start a program where patients cash in their social security checks for chips or just have them mailed right to our practices.

What about health insurance? Who needs it? My casino will accept exactly what every other casino takes – cold, hard cash (or credit cards). Sick people from all over the country will fly in to gamble and get their arteries opened up with an angioplasty. Colonoscopy suites will allow our patients to play poker while we prod them with our scopes. Think of the medical innovation that would occur. Each slot machine could have an ultrasound connected to the foot pedals to give our little old ladies an idea of their bone densities while they drop more coins in the till. The possibilities are endless!

So, let’s summarize. I’ll charge nothing for your care because I’ll make it up in slots (and every other game). All of the profit is cash. Health insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid will no longer be needed. The healthcare crisis is solved. I know what you’re asking, “What about the taxes?” The answer is simple. There must be someone I know (preferably a medical subspecialist) who has some Native American blood in them? I’ll get them in as part owner. By getting Chief Resident Long Finger as my partner, taxes will be cut to nothing.

Let me end this by saying that gambling is fun. Fun for all my patients who are doing it already, fun my accountant who gets to count cash, and fun for my community that will now get a new baseball field from our charity donations. And if organized crime comes around to take their percentage, I would give it. In the long run, their extortion at least offers some protection, verses the strong-arm tactics of HMOs.

Oh, and the name of my casino? That’s easy. I would call it Seizure’s Palace.