User:Nikau/Healthcare

Ancient Era

An indigenous witch-doctor. Yet, when he kills his parents they will still blame video games.

In their rush to go and invent everything else, the Ancient Greeks just seemed to forget health care, thinking they’d all just pull though any Persians they happened to be suffering from with a paracetamol and a good lie down. However, Hippocrates would pen the Hippocratic Oath, the first instance of strict terms and conditions no one ever reads.

Moving to Ancient Rome, pioneering physician Galen popularized the idea that health was dependent upon the balance of four humours – blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile – these were therefore provided to all Roman citizens at various clinics; gladiatorial stadiums for blood, the senate for bile and public orgies for, well, do you really need a reason for an orgy? Sadly, Julius Caesar was only co-insured for 22 stab wounds at the time of his assassination and Antony would deliver the stirring eulogy at his funeral condemning the fact the crowd's hard earned bodily fluids were subsidizing the healthcare of those traitorous Romans too lazy to make their own fluids, concluding;

“ Now let it work. Free market, thou art afoot,

Take thou what course thou wilt!

”

Caesar's traditional blue collar supporters greeted this with shouts of caveat emptor, ex post facto and other Latin terms that don't translate all that well. There would follow a series of blood civil wars that would change absolutely nothing, considered a massive success by all concerned and a model for all future healthcare reform.

Imperial China would pursue a dynamic public/private care setup, whereby both the Emperor and independent merchants would supply public herbs and animal privates. However, the system would draw criticism for its use of government bureaucrats that would assess the merits of each case and possibly hold back payment for treatment if they were not met. The bureaucrats being Asian parents, these merits were impossible to reach and they were often referred to as “death panels”. Eventually this organisation would be dissolved in the non violence thrust upon the Chinese by militant Buddhists, and the elderly would escape euthanasia-by-proxy to continue the transmission of “Confucius say...” jokes.

In the Americas, temple stone carvings show that significant red tape slowed many Mayan open heart surgery cases, with all sacrifices having to submit a complete a medical history report written by the family witch-doctor. The Medicaid system, established by the Mayans to allow for lower income individuals to receive equal access to sacrificial podiums, is largely credited for their rapid collapse into massive foreign debt during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Middle Ages and the Enlightenment

During the high Middle Ages, Saladin and other Islamic rulers would establish bimaristans, the world’s first dedicated public hospitals, known to even perform experimental procedures such as optical surgery and hand washing. These were financed 100% through customer premiums, though if you were skilled enough you could bargain them all the way down to only 60% and a handmade rug.

In contrast, the private care offered by the Vatican would gain favor across medieval Europe. Overseen by one almighty body, a variety of saints would act as miracle providers to care for the people. This system would remain the favoured one throughout Europe for the entire Middle Ages, despite the setback of the Black plague, the Plague’s high death toll owing to the fact that most people had only ticked the coverage for Pestilences of Lucifer box while leaving the Maladies of Beelzebub one blank.

In spite of this, Paracelsus pursued the idea that health in the body relied upon the harmony of man, something that could only be maintained by the consumption of really, really expensive chemicals specific to each body part (Gold – Brain, Silver – Lungs, Tin – Heart etc.) thus setting the tone for all later healthcare. Paracelsus himself pioneered the first small-printing press.

While the Church could subsidize traditional saying of gibberish in consultations (and everywhere else), the cost of subsidizing these new medicines was simply too prohibitive. This did not sit well with English and other European leaders, who had long been used to the government provision of hawthorn trees and animal entrails for the cure of their many horrible ailments, including typhus and living in Britain. Thus began the reformation, driven forwards by the criticism of hospital food at the Diet of Worms, and sparking numerous prolonged was across middle Europe over whether an axe through the head is covered by 3rd party insurance. Indeed, following the split from the Vatican, it was decided that only the protestant God and his chosen representative on Earth, tea, would be responsible for health insurance on British soil from then onward. Disputes about details of care would be settled over a good game of cricket,

Sailors of the 17th and 18th century document numerous Pacific tribes with magnificently advanced healthcare exchanges that even funded abortion and other family planning programs. However, many of these tribes also practiced an unusual combination of vegetarianism (like most pro-choice people) and cannibalism, and their rapidly dwindling population was forced to accept the public option offered by the European missionaries. Indeed, for those infected with the dreaded malaria, the Europeans would kindly provide free small pox infected blankets to ease the pain.

The American Revolution and Onwards

Following the ousting of British rule in the 13 colonies for providing 150 years of substandard treatment for hat-buckle related injuries, the Founding Fathers would write in the constitution exactly how public healthcare should be established and run in the United States. Unfortunately George Washington would unknowingly bite out this section - and the ones regarding gay marriage, abortion and immigration - while testing his new wooden teeth he received on the Presidential dental plan.

Running on the slogan "catch the fever" and a platform of connecting with the common man by granting universal healthcare for all alcohol induced accidents, William Henry Harrison would win the 1840 election. Unfortunately, upon finding Harrison was almost as old as Ronald Reagan, his private health insurance would retroactively cancel its agreement owing to a misspelling of "wig" as "whig" on his application, and Harrison would die 32 days later in an ugly old government building.

The American Civil War was largely fought over concerns that the provision of health insurance for slaves, alongside their excessive $0 a week salaries, would bankrupt the South’s many mom and pop (and step-pop who drinks Jack all day) cotton businesses, depleting the country of its most vital produce; cotton wool balls for cleaning ears and making handicraft sheep.

In 1867 the four provinces of Canada would accept the confederation outlined in the Constitution Act entirely for the goal of rubbing an efficient healthcare system in the face of its Southern neighbour. Access to inexpensive drugs for all Canadians later became necessary to put up with Quebec for 140 years and treat those injured in Canada’s many frontier battles, also known as ice hockey games.