Ticket To Nowhere

Health care in the USA now finds itself where psychiatry historically has been from its inception; namely, paradigmatically all over the place. Technology, increased scientific knowledge and capitalism amongst other things has transformed modern medicine, probably irretrievably, into a consumer product item; no more no less. This brings obvious yet major problems to those who feel passionately that health benefits are an inalienable right to all members of an advanced civilization. But what benefits? Interestingly enough, this politically charged idea has found near full form in the US in a somewhat arcane sub-set of our society, the Veterans Administration. This huge social experiment extending backwards for well over a half century now begs to be framed, placed in better context and researched to see what parts of this experiment in socialized medicine are worth keeping, what parts should be viewed as exorbitant, suspect or moreover transformed and even dismantled. Dr. Esquibel's searching "novella" is a must read to all those who would genuinely like to see society more effectively ponder the wildly fluctuating supercharged dilemma that is health care, psychiatry underscored. Richly insightful and at times provocative-well worth the investment of time and coin.