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Posts published in “Schmidt”

You break it

April 16, 2026

This is not designed for my liberal friends. I want to speak to my conservative ones. I have a few.

Okay, so we dismantle, dissolve, decapitate Medicaid. What to you propose to replace it?

This is the conversation all us Americans should be having. What should health care look like? Are you happy with what you’ve got? Is it our government’s role to even address this?

Besides the preamble “promote the general welfare” the Constitution does not address health care. They were just building a structure for governance back in 1787.

But we could. And we have.

Medicaid was enacted by Congress in 1965. States had to agree to enroll. Idaho enrolled in 1966. Back then I was 12 years old and living in Southern California. But Idaho had a Republican Governor (Smylie) and a Republican majority in both the Idaho House and Senate. And they voted to enroll in this program. Why? Ask yourself, you Republicans.

Nowadays, Idaho Republicans want to dismantle Medicaid. Maybe I do too. It could be so much better.

But they don’t talk about making the system better. They go back door. They cut taxes so now, they can pretend they can’t fund it. Imagine Speaker Mike Moyle with his hands up. “What can we do?” after he has coordinated five years of tax cuts.

I agree with him. What can we do?

Does the Medicaid program best suit our needs? It may not.

But they just want to break it. Can’t we talk about fixing it?

Here’s the Medicaid primer: States pay a share and the federal government pays a share for health insurance for low income and disabled people. The share is determined by a Federal Statutory formula. The maximum a state pays is 50%. Idaho pays 33%.

So if you don’t like the formula, can we talk about it?

But honestly, for all you Republicans out there, my conservative colleagues, it really is a fundamentally deeper question. Do you think we should all have health insurance?

I know this is a miniscule question when we are at “war”. But it’s actually what we should be talking about right now.

You Republicans have been portraying Medicaid as a liberal handout to lazy people who don’t work, don’t pull their weight.

My liberal buddies think health care should be free for all.

I disagree with you both.

I believe health care needs to be a system. We should design a good system. But we will need to agree on some principles for this system.

Since we haven’t had the courage to face this fundamental task, us liberals have given you Republicans room to talk about “work requirements” and “fraud”.

This is just political ping pong, and the American people are losing as we tap the ball back and forth.

So here, I want to speak to the general public, not Republican or Democrat.

Can we talk about how health care should be in our country?

Don’t tell me we can’t afford it. The United States spends almost twice what the next country in the world spends on health care. We can develop a very robust system.

Some people may lose. Some people may win.

Republicans and the medical profession have long argued that getting government involved in health care is antithetical to our founding principles.

Except maybe when it has to do with abortion.

Or transgender care.

But here we are. Basic health care.

Yes, those painful issues will be involved. Take them off the table and start talking? I’m up for it.

Instead of your chipping away at the 1960’s program we currently have that serves a lot of poor and disabled folks. That is just cruel.

If you want to dismantle Medicaid, break it, then let’s make a better program to fix the problem.

You break it, you fix it. I’m all in. Show me.

 

Stupid

April 9, 2026

It’s hard to know where to lay the blame on this one. Our Federal elected officials all voted for this boondoggle. Now our state elected officials are doing their part. So maybe we should all just be looking in the mirror.

Let’s make our situation clear. When we elected our Federal clowns back in 2024, they took it upon themselves to solve our problems with the One Big Beautiful Bill. It cut Medicaid funding and instituted work requirements. I will skip over the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. The deficit grows.

We here in Idaho, a small, mostly rural state will feel big impacts for healthcare in our small towns. They knew that. So they wedged in a deal. Not unlike the ObamaCare deals to insurance companies. But here we are again.

The “deal” to us rural states was a five-year block grant program. We had to develop plans to improve rural health care within their limits and then sustain this after their money went away in five years. We had three months to come up with proposals. We did. They promised the money. Grants are unsustainable, not unlike our federal debt.

But who will be in charge of this nearly $1B from our deeply indebted federal government?

This caused the Idaho legislature a lot of angst. But they got it done.

I appreciate their angst. Someone drops this boondoggle on you; how do you make it work?

It can’t. So why do they care?

We had a Medicaid program grinding along. The OBBB cut it. This will hurt. Maybe this grant will ease the pain.

Let’s be honest. The goal of Republicans is to get more people off the taxpayer teat. I appreciate that. Social Security, Medicare, now Medicaid, these huge federal programs that cost almost as much as our federal debt service and the defense budget drive our deficit. We should have a better plan.

But a billion dollar grant to ease the pain for Idaho? When our elected representatives don’t even think everybody should have health care? And they will decide how this boondoggle should be spent? It’s worse than a clown show.

It’s stupid. But stupid is as stupid does.

Our country needs to be having the fundamental conversation about healthcare. Do we all deserve it? If we do, how do we pay for it? How do we manage the cost?

My profession has lobbied long and hard that health care should be a private sector decision between the doctor and the patient. This has enriched many doctors. Now it is enriching many private equity firms and insurance corporations.

This Idaho Billion-dollar five-year boondoggle is just a diversion. Our legislators know it. That’s why they fought so bitterly over who held the strings. They couldn’t just come right out and say, Screw You, to the poor, uninsured, part time workers with poor access to health care. They wanted to ease your pain.

For five years. Then what?

I am no fan of the Medicaid program. It was a mess from the start. But Idaho was among the first states to jump on the wagon. Back then, Idaho Republicans believed all people should have access to health care. And the Medicaid program was an answer. That was the old days when we thought we could afford it.

Now, I don’t think most of our elected legislators think all people should have health insurance. They sure take our money for their health insurance. What do you think? Should we all have health insurance like our elected officials?

Does a lousy five-year grant from printed money make you want to vote for them? Maybe that’s what our Washington delegation believed. Maybe they thought throwing this stupid bone our direction would get them another 2 or 6 years. It probably will. Idaho votes Republican.

But they could have taken a stand. Can you imagine Senator Risch taking a stand? I can’t.

Now, it will just be a committee of legislators reviewing the grants, for five years. Making us feel better as the system dissolves, melts.

We need a system. Nurses need to be paid. Doctors need to be paid (less). Healthcare for all should be accessible, affordable, and good. We all deserve it. Aren’t we the richest country in the world?

We could be having a real conversation about how we see our future. Instead we bomb and deport. Shame on us.

 

A modest proposal

A modest proposal

March 26, 2026

I am not Jonathan Swift. Though you should read him. Gulliver’s Travels was a hoot. Swift’s ‘Modest Proposal’ is good, so I bring it forward.

Health care is expensive and elusive in this great nation. We could all be better with universal access and better service. But the medical profession fights government regulation. And it has been successful.

When the proposal that all Americans should have health insurance was weakly put forth in the “Affordable Care Act” (Obamacare), the plan was negotiated with the health insurance industry.

So we got the mess we have. It’s just as complicated as it was before the ACA, and now Republicans are chipping away at it.

The ACA got more people insured. And this lowered overall health care costs for a while. Don’t think I’m here supporting it. It’s complicated. Getting more people insured lowers costs for us all. This is a fact.

But the Idaho legislature now wants us to go in the other direction.

Our elected legislators want to get less people health insurance.

And their proposal is that we should be checking if they are working so they would then be eligible for the health insurance benefit.

Let me offer my modest proposal.

All Idaho legislators, who work ¼ time, receive taxpayer funded health insurance. Their benefit costs us Idahoans more than $2M a year. Why don’t we put some work requirements on them?

I live in a district where my State Senator will not attend public forums. And my Representative does not respond to my emails. Are they working? But I’m paying for their health insurance?

I’m getting riled up here.

I can see why the folks in the Marble Dome are riled up. I don’t like sending my money off to folks who aren’t working.

Let me give you an example.

I have served on the Idaho Health and Welfare Board for three years. I have attended every meeting in person. Representative John Vander Woude was also, in statute, a member. He was never in attendance.

But my taxes are paying for his health insurance. And our taxes are not paying for mine.

So just who is working here?

Maybe somebody could tell me.

Here is my modest proposal. If Medicaid expansion health care recipients need to prove they are working, so should our elected representatives.

I could go further. The state of Idaho is the largest employer in this state. And you and I pay top dollar for all of these state employees’ health insurance. Are they working? Did they show up?

In fact, us taxpayers pay a lot more for state employee health insurance than we do for Medicaid Expansion folks.

So let the burden of proving you’re working come down on all who suck at the taxpayer teat.

Well, maybe the burden on all state employees is too much. For now, let’s just limit it to the elected folks.

Brad, did you do 80 hours this last month? Please submit the form.

Raul, can you please have your secretary fill out the form for you?

And all you State Senators and Representatives, yeah, Speaker Moyle too, submit the forms so us taxpayers can be assured. Are you really working?

It’s just a modest proposal. If you are working for our common good, we would be glad to pay for your health insurance. If not, or you somehow don’t find the time to acknowledge our inquiry, sorry.

It really is simple. Do you deserve our money?

That’s what you are saying.

And that is what I am saying.

It is a modest proposal.

Let’s see.

 

Stink

Stink

March 12, 2026

What should you do when your neighbor’s garbage stinks?

She hasn’t taken it out for a month now and I can smell it.

She’s a nice lady. Should I yell at her? Or just take it to the curb myself? Tomorrow is garbage day.

This is the crux of the modern dilemma. We build systems to foster prosperity and some folks just don’t get it.

We have free public schools. Some don’t graduate. Some become homeless and criminals. Didn’t we provide them an opportunity?

We have roads to drive on and good water to drink. The taxes we pay on our gas and the municipal fees support this. But still, some folks don’t buy into the opportunity.

Is this the Elegy for Hillbillies? Read J.D. Vance. But please, don’t pay for it. It’s at the library. A free resource you should relish.

So some don’t. Some don’t dump their garbage. The truck comes by in the morning and all you have to do is roll the stink to the curb. But they don’t.

We could all be hillbillies here.

Hillbillies lived in the hills. They dug their outhouse holes and moved them when the urge called. The folks on the stream below dealt with it. Or died of cholera or typhoid.

But we nowadays are civilized.

Maybe civilized means woke. I don’t know. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit. But I don’t support folks downstream dying when I pollute their water.

I do have to empty my bowels.

And my neighbor should dispose of her garbage. It stinks.

She should take care of it. And she hasn’t.

So what’s a good citizen to do?

Handgun?

Molotov?

Just what is the right response to a negligent citizen these days?

Maybe we vote. Maybe we vote for the guy who will bring down the hammer. Then we don’t need to. He’s the authority. He has the power. Let our elected official be the bad guy.

I’m sorry. I just see that as the coward’s way out.

We need to be holding our fellow citizens to account. Dump your damn garbage.

We need to be our own National Guard. We don’t need troops from neighboring states to police our streets.

Just go talk to the lady.

But I didn’t.

She wasn’t home and I was down there, and it was stinking, so I trundled her garbage to the curb.

As I did this small thing I wondered if I was promoting her irresponsible behavior. Was I fostering her negligence? Us liberals should worry about this more.

And we should feel fine expecting more from those around us.

That doesn’t mean we should be expecting people to think like us. Or act in the way we think people should.

But there is something to say for taking out your garbage. That is a reasonable expectation.

Once, back when I was a doctor and talking to a patient about their pain, they reacted strongly. “It sounds like you are saying this is all my fault!”

I tried to assure them that was not my intent. Pain and stink are here to teach us something. We should learn from them.

Prescribing the narcotic for pain and taking the neighbors garbage out for them is a stretch, I’ll admit.

But it’s really about accepting our own responsibility for our personal situations.

Liberals need to understand this. We have some agency for our conditions.

So I rolled the garbage to the curb. They picked it up like they were supposed to. She came home. The next day I rolled her bin back to its spot.

But she rolled it out this week.

 

Heading

Heading

March 5, 2026

Back when I was a sailor, heading meant where you wanted to go. The compass might swing, the winds might shift, the swell change, but you had your heading. Deal with it.

Idaho is taking a different heading under our current legislature and Governor. You need to be aware the course has shifted. We aren’t just crew. We get to vote for the captain and officers on this ship.

Senate Bill 1314 gets rid of a bunch of stuff. Mainly it gets rid of citizen oversight. It has passed the Senate. It will pass the House. You, the citizens this government is supposed to serve need to know this course shift.

SB1314 eliminates the regional mental health boards. Citizens involved with mental health get together and discuss what should be done, what should change. I guess these voices are no longer welcome on this ship.

SB1314 gets rid of the State Board of Health and Welfare, on which I serve. I guess the Idaho legislature, our Governor and the Department don’t want citizen input.

The Senate sponsor of this bill pointed to our lack of having regular meetings. She didn’t mention the cause. I was going to tell the Senate committee the story of this but was prevented from testifying. Maybe they don’t want to hear the truth.

You should.

The House sponsor of this bill in committee referred to how the H&W Department thought this might be a cost savings. The cost is $10,000 a year for the Board of H&W. That’s a hundredth of our Governor’s security budget.

The house sponsor, in his hurried testimony did let the cat out of the bag. “We have managed care in mental health, so we don’t need these citizen boards. And we are going to have managed care in Medicaid, so they aren’t needed.”

That’s the punchline. Our elected representatives have decided we would be better represented in our dealings with how our state spends our tax dollars by the corporations they choose to contract with, than a citizen board.

Fellow sailors, does that sound good to you?

I wrote last week about Governance, kind of leading up to this. I was asking, just how do we want to be governed?

Corporations have governance. They are beholden to their stockholders, their boards. Their CEO can get hard questions at those board meetings, or they should.

Maybe that’s the heading Idaho wants, to turn our governance over to corporations. What do you say, sailors?

Here’s why the DHW Board didn’t meet for 10 months. I confronted the Director with a policy choice he had made. He cancelled all further meetings until he got ensconced in a Trump HHS spot.

Departments, Directors don’t like hearing from us sailors. It turns out we listen to folks they might not.

And legislators are the same. They really don’t want to hear from us. I emailed all the Senators I knew about this. None replied.

Maybe it’s a DOGE thing, eliminate all waste, I understand that. I looked for waste long and hard when I reviewed budgets on JFAC. But governance isn’t efficient. It requires listening, understanding, consideration.

Idaho’s heading has changed.

So our elected Republican representatives here in Idaho are embracing governance by corporation. Maybe they just read the Trump tea leaves. I have read the science fiction books. Corporations can run everything. But their decisions consider their own balance, not ours.

You cannot do a thing to change this. You have voted these guys into office, and they now call the shots. They set the new heading.

You could vote somebody else into office.

But that would mean you want a different heading. And that you might care.

God, I hope you do.

 

Governance

February 26, 2026

It really comes down to us. Not our elected representatives, not our governor or our congressmen. Just how do we want our government to work?

I have to admit, even when I was campaigning to be elected, and after elected and serving in the official governance position of State Senator, I wondered just what people expected of me.

So here we are. A guy in the White House has decided his elected position is our permission for him to enrich himself. Don’t tell me you don’t know.

So maybe that’s all that governance is about. Get into a position of power and enrich yourself or your family.

So much for representative democracy. I could go down the history rabbit hole. Franklin forecast this. Franklin predicted we would end in despotism.

But, I thought, coming to Idaho, this remote place, maybe we would be shielded. Who cares about this wilderness?

I did. I do.

But we are headlining right here to despotism.

It’s about how and where we want our tax dollars spent. We agree to be taxed under the laws of this republic and this state. Then we want the dollars spent wisely.

Our legislature voted last year to send over half of our annual budget off to some contracted for-profit corporation so maybe they could better spend our Medicaid dollars.

Many states have done this before. It is the popular assumption that business can do things better than government.

There is no evidence to support this. Maybe just your faith. Some folks are going to make bank on your faith. Maybe you like that.

Are you happy with how your private, for-profit health insurance company authorizes your out of network needs? Do you think their denials of care make sense?

But this is where our elected officials have decided we should send 1/3 of the pregnant women in Idaho. And ¼ of the children. Idaho Medicaid will go to corporate managed care.

Governance means we care about how things the people we elect control the things that affect us.

Maybe we don’t.

Maybe we don’t care that they get millions, maybe billions for the backroom deals.

And then we get shitty care and long waits on hold and denials, and their stockholders smile at their share values bump. And maybe we don’t care because this will just affect poor people, not us. We are aspiring to be in the Epstein class.

Is governance about us and them?

Are we going to stand up for what we want/need, or are we going to go back to Netflix? Instagram? Facebook?

And if we have health insurance from our employer and we aren’t too bothered, are we going to care about the whole picture.

Maybe we just think those guys, those losers, deserve the poor care maybe we have avoided.

But maybe we haven’t. We live with the annoyance.

Isn’t this what the first aspirational words, written so long ago in our Constitutional Preamble “…a more perfect Union” called us to?

Maybe our current vision of this more perfect union is just what I can get for me and mine. Jeffery Epstein sure knew how to use that motivation.

So maybe we here in Idaho do aspire to be in that Epstein Class.

The contract awarding process for our billions (chump change for this class; we are still a small state) will shuffle big money off to corporations and the accountability will be remote from our elected officials.

Just as the deaths from Governor Little’s hold back don’t lie in his or the Director of the Department of Health and Welfare’s lap. These services are contracted through a managed mental health company. They are to blame.

When we give up our governance to big corporations, we are giving up our freedom. If you can’t see that, then you aren’t paying attention. Still on Netflix?

 

Solution

Solution

February 19, 2026

So the University of Idaho and the University of Utah have come to an agreement on medical education for Idaho. Maybe the legislative work group was involved, maybe not. This sort of deal is truly back room. It makes you wonder if there was some well-connected financier with a private island and young girls involved. But Idaho is not really in the Epstein Class.

It matters for Idaho taxpayers. It’s our money going down these drains to their powerful cesspools. But the deal is announced and the legislature must now decide.

There are some important questions.

#1. Do you have the vision?

Doing new things requires a clear and directive vision. I saw none of this from our legislative task force. What should the health care for Idaho look like in the future? Just what skills need to be trained and staffed? Who will be the “provider” in the small town or the big city medical center? I saw no plan for this.

#2. Do you have the money?

Doing new things costs money. The Idaho legislature has spent the last five years depleting the revenue stream. Our legislators have given tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations so we now, while our economy booms and population grows, have less tax dollars.

They will cut funding to K12 schools, they will cut funding for health care and prisons. But they will find money for this endeavor? We’ll see.

#3. Do we have the will?

Going a new direction requires fortitude. It will take years of dedicated work to build the relationships, the staff, the commitments from the medical community. Doctors are needed to train doctors. Nurses are needed to train nurses. Doctors and nurses and Physician Assistants have to learn to work together. Training them together is the best way to make this happen.

Nothing in this announced Treasure Valley plan describes this. And the idea that our legislature, who has spent years hating the medical profession, will jump on board, is ludicrous. The legislators who have put their thumb on the scale for medical education are motivated by their own petty grievances. None have a clear vision for the future of Idaho health care. Soon as their pet peeve is dispensed, they will fade. There is no will.

So I have asked my questions. Will the Idaho voters ask theirs?

I doubt medical education is at the front of any Idaho voter’s mind. Most are probably working to pay the rent and get to work in the morning. I have always wondered just why the Idaho legislature even cared.

Old Cece came up with the WAMI program as a band aid. It has worked for a while. Fifty years. Great band aid.

But we now need to move on. We have had a great affiliation with the University of Washington. I am a graduate of their medical school. Indeed, the top graduate going into Family Medicine in 1986. And I have practiced here in Idaho until a couple years ago.

I appreciate that the University of Idaho and the University of Utah have come to some agreement about medical education. But it seems to me they are just shrugging into more of what we’ve always done.

It’s time to do more.

It’s time to look at the big picture of health care in the state of Idaho and start building for our future needs.

We need more information.

We need to know how rural communities serve and struggle.

We need to know just what specialists are necessary to serve our people.

We need to understand the value of medical care; what works and what is waste.

I can’t right now believe our legislature, who represents us, gives a shit. But they represent us, don’t they?

I really wish we all cared.

 

Back in the day

February 5, 2026

Old men like to tell stories. Some are good at it. Some aren’t. We tell them anyway.

I was in the Idaho legislature the last time and only time public K12 funding was cut. I was in the minority and voted against it. Medicaid got cut. It was a dismal time. I entered the Idaho legislature in 2010. The economic crash of 2008 was just washing over the state’s revenue stream. We were growing in population, but the general economic downturn was severe and money was tight. Reserve funds were depleted, zeroed out. That was the situation I joined.

Idaho trails the national economy. By 2010, when I entered the legislative swamp, I could see the national tide beginning to rise. But Idaho must balance revenue against expenditures, according to our Constitution. We cannot bet on a projection.

So we cut budgets.

I watched my colleagues. Mainly the Republicans, since they held the seats and were in charge. I appreciated that they knew the numbers, the fiscal situation, and our mandate. They voted to cut the budgets because there really wasn’t a lot else our state could do right then.

I was betting on more tax revenue coming in than we thought, as the national economy stabilized. I believed some Republicans low balled the projected revenue to justify the cuts. But I respected most of the Republicans who thought we needed to be conservative with our budgeting. We have to balance the book.

And I was right about the revenue. After cutting Medicaid and schools, we ended with a surplus.

I also watched who just wanted to cut the budget out of spite. There are those ideologues. Some conservatives think we should get the government shrunk down to the size we can drown it in a bathtub. But many of my Republican colleagues felt the pain of these cuts. They regretted our circumstance. They saw the need for the services the state provided and regretted we could not continue all those.

That was back in the day.

But Idaho is in this day. And this day, our Republican Idaho legislature has manufactured this “budget crisis”.

The national economy is not on the skids.

Idaho has a Billion dollars in reserves funds. That’s 20% of our annual budget.

But we have our elected representatives planning to cut funding for schools and health care as our population and economy grows. And after they have voted for a billion in tax cuts for corporations and rich people.

I have no idea who I’m talking to here. I’m an old man telling a story. It’s not going well. The room is silent.

This old man remembers those guys in suits in the Capitol with their name tags. I remember the things that were important to them.

I believed most of them listened to and represented their constituents. But also, I knew, some did not.

Once in the lunchroom, when I sat across from a Representative from North Idaho, I asked him who he talked to.

“Oh,” he said chewing his sandwich. “I meet with my central committee regularly.”

I knew this guy. He would vote for any budget cut. And he didn’t care who it might affect.

We do government to help this be a better place, mainly for our kids. So they can have a place to prosper and thrive.

That’s how this old man sees it. But while I’ve been going on, I’ve come to realize, some in the room don’t like the story I have been telling. So I go silent.

As I sit in my chair and ponder the silence, I come to realize, not everybody thinks like I do.

And as I age and decline, I wonder just what is the purpose of this fight?

Then my granddaughter runs in with her new outfit.

We need to be building this place for them.

 

Grants

Grants

January 29, 2026

The news and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare are trumpeting the billion-dollar, five-year grant to our state. This fiasco was shoe-horned into the One Big Beautiful Boondoggle that cut taxes and exploded our debt.

Our federal “Gang of Four” want credit for bringing the dollars home, while they cut Medicaid funding and ballooned our debt. Go ahead, slap them on the back.

Vote for them again. After all, they are Republican and Trump lackeys.

This grant required states to propose projects that would “qualify” in a narrow three-month window. How’s that for thoughtful expenditure of our tax dollars?

The projects had to be sustained beyond the five-year grant period by the state. Do you think the Idaho legislature is going to come up with $200M/year for Idaho healthcare when the grant runs out?

Most of the grant money will be for technology improvements. I have seen this before. Who gets that money? Not local communities. The big tech bros who sat behind Trump at the inaugural catch this effluent downstream. It will just wash through our depleted state.

The ACA (Obamacare for you Republicans) did the same thing. I was working on the IDHW budgets in those years. I asked my analyst (Hey Tater!) what the heck this money was doing. Indeed, it was all Federal money, from our federal income taxes. It was supposed to be moving clinics and hospitals to more electronic medical records. I asked him to look into it. He told me the money was helping. I shrugged and it got appropriated. That was stupid.

I had been through this in real life. I was in the first large clinic in Idaho to adopt electronic medical records. We were on the cutting edge. And we made the investment without any federal or state grants. We spent our own money. Why?

I learned we had different reasons for this investment. I believed that having our medical records in a searchable database we could study our practices and find out the best treatments, the best way to deal with the common problems we saw daily.

My partners had different reasons. We had five people working in our medical records department at the time. They were low wage but had benefits and retirement. After the million-dollar investment we had one medical records employee.

Three years into the “experiment”, long before Obamacare, I proposed leveraging this investment to my partners. Let’s do studies on our data. Let’s find out what our best treatment for a urinary tract infection is. We could find out how we are treating high blood pressure. We could improve our practice.

It was an impassioned speech. The group around the table was quiet. Don’t you want to learn how to treat your patients better, I asked. They were all quiet. I looked at the guy next to me. Don’t you? I asked directly.

He looked up at me, squarely in the eyes, and honestly said, “No.”

The allure of data, analysis, technology in medical care is a sham if there is no commitment from the professionals pulling the levers.

So we need to be asking ourselves some painful questions.

Why does Idaho need more doctors if they are just here to make themselves richer?

Do doctors really improve the health of a community?

What do you people want from healthcare?

We don’t have to answer these tough questions (though we should), but big money is asking and answering them while we pay the taxes, and the taxpayer funded grants go out the door.

The billion-dollar grant to Idaho will go to big tech companies who sell kiosks and apps to connect to a provider. The call you make will go to Islamabad, or more likely AI, and you might get the reassurance you need or not.

Will your community be better off?

I am sorry I shrugged with the ACA money for electronic records. It didn’t cost Idaho taxpayers. But it cost us all. We should be expecting more and getting more for the way too much we pay for this horrible health care system. This needs to change.