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.