TSA: Solution to the Healthcare Crisis

Curtis Coleman

Curtis Coleman, Contributing Author:  The solution is right under our noses, and we’ve been griping about it! With the federal government spending millions of our taxpayer dollars pretending to keep us safe on airplanes using full body scanners and full body pat downs, the government has presented us with the opportunity for an extraordinary efficiency. (When’s the last time you saw “efficiency” and “government” used in the same sentence? There’s a tip-off to just how good this is.)

With only a modicum of additional training – perhaps one additional day – TSA agents can be trained to perform dozens of preventative healthcare screenings, with only the slightest additional intrusion and inconvenience to airline passengers.

Just think of all the medical exams that could be easily added to the security screening process…

• Ear, nose and throat exams
• Blood pressure checks
• Breast exams
• Body Mass Index (BMI) evaluations
• Prostate exams
• Foot exams for diabetics
• And so many more! 

And the new full body scanner equipment can surely be easily modified to also perform:

• Chest and lung x-rays
• Brain tumor detection
• Gallstone detection
• Mammograms
• And again, so much more!

ID documents can be required to include inoculation and vaccination information. If a passenger hasn’t had their flu shot for the season, wham, it’s done right there on the spot. And dip tanks can be added to the security line for people who are discovered to have STDs.

Millions, yeah, probably billions can be saved annually just on doctors’ office visits and trips to emergency rooms. Imagine the savings, and this is just the beginning! Passengers discovered to have expensive medical problems can be “weeded out” on the government’s national digital medical records database. Think of the $billions the government can then save on single payer healthcare plans. We could probably cover hundreds of thousands more illegal aliens.

And what a boon to the airlines. They can offer free medical exams when we buy a ticket. (Well, for a limited time only, then there would have to be an additional charge, except at Southwest Airlines, of course.) Our medical insurance could offer us the choice of (1) an annual physical at our doctor’s office or (2) a free airline ticket to grandmother’s house during the holidays.

Of course, this plan will produce such enormous reductions in American healthcare costs, these full body scanner and full body pat downs will have to be migrated to trains, and subways, and federal buildings, and…gosh, where would we have to stop?

So the next time you’re worrying about the escalating costs of healthcare while you’re waiting for your exam in an airport security line…hug a TSA agent! But guard your rear…you may get a needle stuck in it (or something worse.)

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They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin in Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818).
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Curtis Coleman is the President of The Curtis Coleman Institute for Constitutional Policy and contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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