BAD MEDICINE?: WHO HAS PRESCRIPTION FOR U.S.?

A candidate for governor recently confided that he had never seen Missourians as unhappy, pessimistic and angry as they are at this moment. If one reads, only occasionally, the national newsmagazines, this disclosure comes as no surprise. These publications for some time have been devoting their cover stories to "The Angry Voter" and "America's Lost Dream" and "The Disgruntled American."

America seems to have a collective stomach ache, and the patient has selected Dr. Washington as the house physician, impatiently waiting for him to write a prescription that will not only ease the pain but transform the client into an energetic and prosperous physical specimen resembling bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, as George Bush's favorite campaign-trail companion would say, "Hasta la vista, baby." Putting it another way, how do we know that Dr. Washington isn't really a quack, a charlatan who couldn't even cure ~dandruff on a bald head?

To be perfectly frank about it, we suspect that good old Doc Washington and all of his capital compatriots don't have the foggiest idea how to solve our national malaise. To be sure, the claims of the medicine men are wonderful, even grandiose, but if one believes one-tenth of the premise of holistic medicine it's essential that the patient have some confidence in his doctor and believe that all of his nostrums will do the trick. As a matter of fact, we hear few patients expressing any confidence these days in Dr. Washington or anyone else.

It isn't that the nation lacks medical teams anxious to tend to its health. We have one group, as doctors like to call their money-making conglomerates, known as the White House Group, headed by a senior physician named Dr. Bush. Then we have the Capitol Group, run by licensed Democrats who seem to be better giving second opinions than initial diagnoses. Next we have the Campaign Group, composed of those medicine men whose promises to cure our ills run from ordering a quarantine of our borders to supposedly magical elixirs for our tax medicine.

What's interesting about all of this medical talent is that if we examine the prescriptions carefully, we'll find very little real difference. The disparity is in the mixture, not the final diagnosis. The White House Group wants to tamper with the high-level medicine, changing the formula in order that the healthier patients can provide assistance to those in the emergency room. The Capitol Group believes the cure can be found in treating the middle-level sufferers, having suddenly discovered as the campaign draws closer that about 67 percent of the caseload fits this category. The Campaign Group seems principally interested in being selected by as many patients as possible and so they prescribe just about anything and everything, with the only difference being in which state they're doing the diagnosing.

Since most patients have been shopping around for years to find the best medicine man available, and since most have by now adopted a highly cynical view of all the available diagnosticians, it isn't surprising in the least that most are by now shopping for the doctor with the most pleasing bedside manner. And when it comes to this variety, we have no shortage of certified specialists. We have physicians who can deliver a diagnosis in the most smoothing, reassuring voice this side of Walter Cronkite. We have others, as brusque as radio talker Rush Limbaugh, who hold that tone is less important than the forceful manner of the prescriber. And there are still others, a la Mario, who don't seem to have much interest in practicing medicine but who can deliver a diagnosis in such a manner as to all but cure the dying.

As for the patient himself, it's generally agreed he isn't a terminal hypochondriac. He appears to be suffering from a number of valid complaints, ranging from shortness of ready cash to periodic bouts of bloated inflation to a chronic case of dehydrated savings. There is some argument about the origin of these complaints. Some believe they can be traced back to an earlier period in which the patient overdosed on debt and greed, while others contend it was transmitted from some foreign country, most probably Japan. Others are less certain about the origin, except they note most of the illnesses are a new strain in this generation, thus ruling out heredity.

Unfortunately, the patient himself appears incapable of self-medication and is forced to rely on physicians who one time will prescribe for the shortness and other times go for a cure of the dehydration. The patient, suffering from all this variety of treatment, is often tempted to remain in bed and complain. Because his doctors squabble so much among themselves, the patient becomes more and more depressed and comatose, and one suspects that when he recovers it will be in spite of his physicians, not because of them. The best prognosis is that when the patient gets out of bed and goes back to work, his recovery chances will materially improve. Or, as a dear departed physician friend contended: "Ninety-five percent of my patients will get well regardless of what I do."

Now that's a doctor for all seasons.