Star Trek Economics

There are a lot of varied healthcare topics I will discuss on this blog, but several topics will form the foundation of many of my arguments.

There is one principle in particular that bears definition right away, as I plan to refer back to it often.
I’m not an economist, and I don’t know the academic term for this phenomena, so I just came up with my own catchy phrase - I call it “STAR TREK ECONOMICS”.

You see, many of the players in the healthcare game would have you believe in Star Trek Economics on one level or another. This is not done overtly – Star Trek Economics is something that they want you to accept on some deep subconscious level. They never want to actually give any thought to Star Trek Economics – because Star Trek Economics is, by my definition, pure fantasy. Anyone with half a brain would agree that it’s pure fantasy if they thought about it for more than a few seconds. This exactly why the major healthcare players don’t want you to think about it. Hopefully, if I’ve done my job, I’ve let this genie out of the bottle, and you will all reject Star Trek Economics from this point forward.

But I will remind you of it whenever I get the opportunity…I’m annoying like that….

Remember Star Trek? Of course you do. For most people, the coolest thing about the original Star Trek was the Transporter. People could beam down to a planet and materialize out of thin air. So cool.

Many players want you to think (actually, not think, rather just accept on a subliminal level) that their money works the same way – it just materializes out of thin air, like Captain Kirk on a planet full of green women. This, of course, is pure nonsense. Money, in the healthcare system, comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is ultimately your wallet. It comes from there directly, via your co-pays and premiums, or indirectly, via your tax dollars. But from your wallet it comes.

Your hard-earned dollars are at work everywhere. All of those commercials on television that implore you to 'ask your doctor about..'. Those billboards at the baseball park. that blimp flying overhead. That sprawling office campus. Whenever you see these things, you have a right to feel proud. After all, your health care dollars have paid for a little piece of each one of them.

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