This week The Blowfly has been concerned with health.
And why not?
Everyone else is! Barack Obama wants to get his health reform package through before he shows his face on our fare shores. Kevin Rudd is committed to getting his health reform package through. Tony Abbott has been roped into debating health with the PM and we mere mortals are hopeful but skeptical that any darn thing will happen at all.
The Blowfly has a simple perspective on health.
"The more bins the better! Especially those with their tops off."
But today The Blowfly is upon the PM's shoulder as he prepares for the debate on health next Tuesday at the National Press Club with Tony Abbott.
Our Kevvie has decided to go all creative rather than bore the journos with the tired old crap of throwing more money at the problem. Money has its place in politics, he knows, but this health problem is too endemic to be solved that way.
Relaxing at his Queensland home, he has trolled through his library and has managed to locate his Edward de Bono collection on the subject of lateral thinking. Although you would not know it , the PM has everyone of de Bono's books.They do appear to The Blowfly to be largely unread and in pristine condition.
But for the largely unread tomes of Edward de Bono their moment of glory has arrived!
The Blowfly settles in for a heavy channelling session as Kevvie settles into the easy chair in the study and starts sipping his trendy chamomile tea that Therese has made for him.
He refreshes his mind regarding one of de Bono's thought provocation tools 'PO'.(for the uninitiated this is a seemingly ridiculous statement that is related to the problem in the hope that it may stimulate new areas of thinking)
Kevvie frames his first PO statement: "PO: Hospitals are cheap to run when they have no patients"
From your position on his right shoulder you can hear the cogs of the Mandarin-speaking brain start turning over. The first thought appears.
"I could stop people going to hospital..........I could create more paperwork to totally deter them..........I could create triage nurses in casualty departments who make people wait so long that they went home..........."
"I could subsidise the alternative health industry to provide free vitamins and massages..........that would mean the voters would be healthier and may not use the hospitals...........I wonder whether it would be cheaper to do this than operate hospitals..........Shit! That would be a no-brainer!" He starts writing in his notebook."I'll get my boffins onto that straight away".
" I could make hospitals more like prisons so people did not want to go into them.......hmmm.....hospitals and prisons already have many things in common.....visiting hours, visiting medicos and psychologists, strict routines, lights out etc........too alike I guess".
" I could make euthanasia legal......that would reduce the numbers of elderly going into hosptals.........that would also reduce the numbers of hostels needed going forward.............but I need that elderly vote coming up to the next election......... I wonder would I lose or gain the elderly vote if I legalised euthanasia? Mmmmm......that's a hard one.........said the actress to the Bishop.......he,he,he...........I'll get my boffins onto that one too!"
"Instead of paying doctors to facilitate people going into hospitals I could pay doctors to keep doctors out of hospitals..........I know! I know! I could pay doctors to refer patients to those flash medical facilities in Asia........in fact that's a thought!.........maybe we could outsource our hospital services to Asian health services providers......they seem to be cheaper by far..........all we'd have to do is to fly them there..........and air travel is cheap..........golly gee gosh........what a fantastic idea for our global economy.........I'm always spruiking about trade opportunities with Asia.......I'll get my boffins to look at that one too!"
"Jesus, this de Bono stuff is good. Therese always treats me like such a dickhead, but with this de Bono stuff I could look like a real leader. Then she wouldn't sneer at me."
"Theodore Roosevelt was right----'All the resources we need are in the mind'"
"I'm glad Barack postponed his trip. I'll be able to tell him all my good ideas about health.He really needs me over there to fix his health system. I wonder if Therese would move to Washington? Or maybe New York----where the UN is! Julia's ready to take over. And that guy could win his bet!"
"Tony Abbott here I come!"
His eyes close for his afternoon snooze.
The words of Winston Churchill float into The Blowfly's mind-----"They were decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, all-powerful for impotence."
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