Gazpachot Health Care Solution...

My solution to this health care mess is simple. Demystify medicine and health. It all goes back to education.

Let me back up a little. The practice of medicine is heavily reliant upon a certain smoke and mirrors factor. The doctor wears a white coat and writes in Latin. He or she knows things you don't. You are at their mercy. Be (a) patient.

I propose that starting from a very young age, right through college, every citizen should receive basic but thorough medical training in school. People should learn to spot early symptoms, diagnose themselves, and administer basic remedies to common ailments. Preventative medicine should be taught (and stressed) along a parallel path.

In a culture where health and medicine are demystified and understood at the core level, there would be less abuse of prescriptions, less self destructive behavior all around.

Of course there would still be doctors and hospitals for surgery and other serious problems, but there would be infinitely fewer visits to the doctor for "frivolous" needs, check ups, and tests that clog up the works and drain our resources while the insurance companies turn a tidy profit.