Beam Me Up

"If you can dream it, you can do it."

~Walt Disney

Tomorrow morning Al and I will climb in the car and travel three hours so that he can undergo an ultrasound and a fine needle biopsy. And then we will drive three hours home. A trip we have already made once. Eventually we will go back for surgery, requiring a multi-day stay as well. What's wrong with this picture?

The distribution and availability of health care, or lack thereof, continues to plague our country and our world. If you or your family have the means, distance is no problem. Steve Jobs received a new liver, not because he jumped over others on a list, but because he could afford to fly to all the facilities that kept lists; an action that was perfectly legal and recommended by his doctors. (Jobs lived in California where the wait was three times longer than Tennessee where he received his transplant.)

However, if you are just an average citizen, you face significant hurdles. Where medical treatment is available and how to get to that treatment can make such a decision life or death. This dilemma is especially true if you live outside a major population center. Those, as we are, who are semi-solidly middle class (but retired on a fixed income) jump in our car, spend extra time recovering from the stress of travel on top of the medical stress and, in the long run, hope we and our finances survive.

And if you are poor, well, everything is worse and often catastrophic.

None of this is news to any sentient being.

Today I am dreaming just a little bit. The big dream, of course, is fixing the health care system. But a smaller dream is fixing transportation. And personal cars are not the fix; although I'm open to self-driving, electric cars. Extensive mass transportation is the only way to level the playing field. Think buses, trolleys, trams, light rail, passenger trains, metros, undergrounds, subways, ferries, high speed rail, hovercraft, share taxi, paratransit or my long time personal favorite: Star Trek Transporter. Before you sneer, reread the quote at the top of this blog. We need more folks to passionately and doggedly follow the dream. Beam me up.