Dear Sirs;
This may
not be the forum to which this idea should be addressed, but I think it could
be. Last weekend I attended a sports
medicine conference in Jacksonville
that included two physicians who work with the NFL, Dr. Archie Roberts and Dr. Robert
Dimeff. During a panel discussion
concerning sudden death in sports and preparticipation examinations, one of the
panelists, Dr. Barry Maron, concluded that there was no money in the USA
for EKGs and/or echo cardiograms. At the
same time he admitted that Italy
has required them for participants in organized sports for sixty years. EKG and echo would eliminate a majority of
sudden death occurrences in sport. I
raised my hand and suggested that a tax on the bonuses paid to rookies in the
NFL could supply the money necessary.
The panel shook their heads, probably in disbelief of my naivete.
Later Dr.
Dimeff told me it was not the responsibility of rookie football players to
support physical examinations. He is
correct; it should be the responsibility of all
of professional sports. There is a lot
of money harvested through professional sports.
Sports franchises are very successful capitalistic enterprises, even
though they claim otherwise. The amount
of money that flows through franchises boggles the mind.
In the real
world of real estate, smart developers also make a lot of money. Local governments recognize that the
developers need to contribute to the welfare of an entire neighborhood, town,
city, county, or state. Thus governments
require the developers to contribute to the general population’s benefit before
they are allowed make a profit. In Florida,
developers have been required to build local improvements: roads, sewers, even
lakes and canals to win approval of their schemes.
As many
physicians are aware, the distribution and delivery of medicine in the United
States leaves a lot to be desired. We have some of the best medical equipment
and knowledge available in the world, but the one of the worst delivery systems. Medicine is now big, profitable business; the
indigent suffer. Capitalism eats its
young in order to pay the stockholders.
Social medicine has a delivery system that also stinks, because it
cannot afford to deliver newer treatments in a timely fashion.
So, how
would having a tax on NFL rookies fix anything that has to do with
medicine? Do you think the rookies would
actually pay that tax? Or the franchise? Or the NFL?
Or the television networks? Or
the advertisers? No. The people paying the tax would be the fans,
the people who want to see games and dream of playing or having their children
play in a professional league. Ticket
prices would go up a little; cans of chunky soup and beer would go up a little. But, now the tip of the athletic pyramid, the
golden tip, would support the vast
base of that pyramid. No more raping and
pillaging – stealing the elite athletes at the expense of the vast ignored majority.
A side
effect would be improved professional sports leagues. If every child were guaranteed an annual
sports physical, more children would play.
That broadens the base of the pyramid.
More good athletes will be discovered, maybe enough to have more teams. With more children playing sports, there
would be less obesity, (hint to advertisers) fewer Type II diabetics sitting on
the couch playing computer games instead of watching or participating in
sports. If the sports physical included
an EKG and/or echocardiogram, then there would be fewer deaths.
There are
other applications for this capitalistic answer to socialized medicine: Pharmaceutical companies could be taxed to
pay for all childhood immunizations.
That way there later will be many more old folks to whom to sell their
expensive geriatric medications.
Profitable hospitals (and a majority do profit – giving millions to a
CEO and claiming not-for-profit status should be illegal) should be taxed to
supply preventative medical care to indigents, medical care that is spelled out,
not write-offs. I’m certain the smart
MBAs can still manage a profit in all these instances. And I am positive that people smarter than me
can find other ways of providing socialistic medical care in a capitalistic
manner to those who cannot afford it in
the richest country in the world.
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