Dr Muskett Returns

I was getting worried when I hadn’t heard for what seemed like months from my favorite cardiac-turned-plastic surgeon, Billings’ own Dr Alan Muskett. I know I’ve blogged about him in the past but I couldn’t find the entries, though I did find in back pages of the Gazette a number of other good articles by Dr Muskett. Chalk it up to advancing age, mine, not his.

By the way, one of the many ways you can measure your own decline is to re-read a few of your past attempts at sensible blogging, which I did while searching for blogs about the good Dr Muskett. Well OK, I enjoyed a few of them, mostly those I had borrowed from others. I think I actually improved the blogosphere a little by deleting some. I should have been an editor.

Now then, in today’s Gazette Dr Muskett tells us lots of dark medical secrets, admitting that surgeons, including himself, actually do the terrible things that our president says we do. Such as taking out perfectly fine tonsils: well, that is actually only done by the evil ENTs of course. He says it in a humorous way, hoping that his readers will think he is being ironic as usual.

After capturing our attention with the light-hearted truth-telling he then goes on to the meat of the matter, which is that the reason we pay more than the rest of world for our medical care is that we are sicker and it is our own fault. He proves his point by citing his own recent need for a coronary stent. What a rhetorical stunt!

Dr Muskett says that our politicians do not tell us the truth because it is politically unacceptable: that we consume way too much health care, that we are too fat and too lazy, that we expect something for nothing, and that we expect to live forever.

What is the cure for these prosperity-related problems? Dr Obama and his friends have their egalitarian answer. I suspect it has something to do with "spreadin' the wealth around a little" as Joe the Plumber learned. Read the article for yourself. As always, Dr Muskett makes a lot of sense.