Health Care in Idaho

Idahoans possibly have the lowest health care costs in America. Why? Well, that's because Idahoans are very resourceful, especially in the more rural parts of Idaho. Here is a great example.

One of the main staples in rural Idaho is the logging communities. Loggers are hard working, no-nonsense, get'er done type of folk. Sometimes loggers must take matters into their own hands, especially when things go wrong in the back woods. Loggers are very versatile, for example, they cross-train themselves in medical care.

Let's take a look at a day in the life of Boomer, a rural Idaho Logger. Boomer has been a logger for over 30 years and knows his stuff. He is tough and when it really gets tough, he wears red suspenders. Just in case. Loggers tend to run in herds...it is rare that you will fine one lone logging truck on the road. So on a typical day when Boomer was driving a logging truck, he had a fellow logger running with him. So when the fellow logger stops his truck because of a...ahem...medical problem, Boomer stopped his truck along side of the road as well. "What's the problem?" asked Boomer. "I dunno," said the fellow logger, as he pulls his hand out of his pants with blood on it. "I think I might have a tick or somethun." "Where?," asked Boomer. "Well," said the fellow logger,"in my um hiney crack."

Well now these loggers recognized that this is a potential important medical problem, and it didn't take long for the fellow logger to come up with a plan of action. "Hey Boomer, can you take a looky to see if it's a tick?" Well, what was Boomer to do, watch the man bleed to death, or render medical assistance in the field? The fellow logger dropped his drawers and grabbed his ankles. Good thing Boomer had a pocket knife with him (as all loggers do). After sanitizing the knife by swiping it twice along his pant leg, he went after that tick. It was this pose that is forever imprinted in the memory of the 15 other truck drivers hauling logs down that very same road right then. But no worries. The Silent Gag Order was immediately enforced just with 7 little words out of Boomer's mouth: "You say anything to anybody, you die."

Fortunately for the fellow logger, the minor field surgery extracted the tick, and the fellow logger lived on.

And that my friend, is how rural Idahoans conquer health care issues in Idaho.

Meet Bob

How is it that a simple question can turn into complete angst? Meet Bob. Bob was born and raised in a very rural part of Idaho. He has definite ideas that will never change. He's also a thinker, and likes to think things to death. And then kill it some more. Just about the time that Bob has thought about a topic that has long since met it's long drawn out death, Bob will think about it some more. And then, when some unsuspecting person asks him a question about The Topic, Bob gets to pull out the loaded shotgun again. Here's an example of one of those moments:

Bob was talking to a guy who works out at Les Schwab today, and the Les Schwab guy asked Bob some questions. Here is how Bob related the conversation to me:

LS Guy: So you haul the county garbage to Southern Idaho, right?

Bob: Right.

LS Guy: So how much does it cost to haul the garbage down there?

Bob: $17.25 per ton, well actually they are giving us a cut rate at $12 per ton, and I haul about 30 thousand pounds per day times 8 per week, times 29 times twenty five, so do the math.

LS Guy: Well one of the County Commissioners came here today and was asking for our support in the concept of the new landfill that is to be built out at Nezperce that will be used for our county garbage. He said this county will be saving millions and millions of dollars, which would then be money to pave every county road.

Bob:(His voice now 2 octaves louder) The proposal for the new landfill says they will charge this county $29.75 per ton, so you tell me how that is saving the county money. It’s just like throwing our county money down the drain for that Lankford guy…you know, the one who murdered that couple years ago. A local attorney keeps having to testify three times per month at $10,000 a time, and for what? They ought to take that Lankford guy out and tie ‘im to a tree out in the woods and have the so called wolves that (quote quote) Idaho doesn’t have, and they can have lunch. That would save the county taxpayers millions and millions of dollars right there.

And that, my friends, is how you solve problems in a rural county in Idaho.