Dumb Stunt Leads Sixth-Grader to Nobel Prize

BROKEN LIMB, ND – Kids sometimes do incredibly stupid things. Like try to jump from a roof onto a trampoline and land in a swimming pool. On a tricycle. Backwards. Rarely does the predictably disastrous result subsequently lead to anything better than a bitter lesson learned. Unless your name is Joan Pocahontas and your jump leads to a Nobel Prize in Economics in addition to a leg newly shaped like a pretzel.

Pocahontas, now a sixth-grader at the Murphy S. Law Elementary School, came up just a tad short of the pool after bouncing high off the trampoline in her back yard. Her What I Did This Summer report on the first day of school detailed the events from her “Uh-oh” midair moment to her journey through the medical system, where all the king’s horses and all the king’s men talked and poked and prodded and tested and drugged and took pictures and talked and poked and prodded and tested and drugged and took pictures some more before finally putting her leg back together again. Elegant in its simplicity, her two-page handwritten paper blatantly exposed the critical flaw in America’s out-of-control costly medical system and proposed a radical, yet trivially easy solution. All in her forty-five minute third period history class.

Her teacher, Francine Sagesse, was so impressed with Joan’s report that she sent it to the editor of the local Daily Muckraker newspaper. The story proved so hot that the news wire services snapped it up and spread it nationally, bumping Elvis Spotted at Taco Bell off the front pages. Soon, when the U.S. Congress caught wind of her proposal, both political parties recognized its brilliance, put down their dueling swords and pistols, and crafted it into new legislation.

Immediately after gaining a glowing President Obama’s signature, the new law’s effect on medical costs was profound. The nation’s expenditures on healthcare began dropping like a rock. Costs are dropping still, yet with no worsening of patient outcomes. All thanks to a daredevil sixth-grader.

The gist of Pocahontas’s report? From, like, the EMT service, ambulance ride, emergency room, X-rays, scans, medicines, operation, and, like, hospital recovery to her, like, follow-up doctor visits, not even, like, once did anybody, like, tell the cost before they just, like, totally went ahead and, like, totally did stuff. Only, like, weeks later did a totally huge pile of medical bills show up in her parents’ mailbox. That’s when they got, like, totally mad. Them yelling hurt lots worse than her leg ever did.

And her Nobel Prize suggestion? Make doctoring places totally like restaurants in, like, France. Make, like, all medical practicers put up a, like, menu outside their office and, like, on the Internet for everybody to totally see. Make them, like, totally show their prices for every medical thing they do, whether you got insurance or not.

This simple act of forcing public cost disclosure allowed the normal competitive forces of supply and demand to finally apply to the world of healthcare. No more surprise fees or medical providers charging whatever they like to an egregiously uninformed public. Hello Nobel Prize.

Joan, yes, you were a total idiot who made a stupid jump and broke your leg. But you’re also a hero for pointing out a way to fix the national healthcare crisis. Just don’t do it again. You might break your neck next time. Or put your eye out. Try playing with motors and sunlight and batteries instead. If you don’t electrocute yourself or burn your house down, maybe you’ll solve the energy crisis before the seventh grade.

09.09.09