Hospital Ships Anyone?

In the aftermath of the recently-enacted healthcare legislation, I've been considering what sorts of unintended consequences will occur.

Of course, everyone with a brain has already identified the phenomenon of corporations dumping their employees onto the federal government, rather than continue to pay for anything but bare-bones health care. So much for that 'keep the plan you like' lie from Congress and the administration.

And it's becoming clear that many older doctors won't wait around to see their incomes slashed as they become de facto federal employees. Thus, just as millions are added, at below-cost premiums, to health insurance rolls, the capacity of the medical field to treat them will shrink drastically.

But I think there will be another, more surprising development in the provision of healthcare. It occurred to me while watching a History channel program concerning 1920s rum runners. The fast small boats ferried loads of illegal alcohol from mother ships hovering just outside the limits of US jurisdiction at sea.

My prediction is that someone will organize a business providing full-service medical and hospital care on ships sailing just beyond the reach of US law. Probably domiciled in a small country where permissions may be cheaply obtained, the services will offer or arrange for insurance policies, the claims on which will be fulfilled on board the medical ships.

Being out of US jurisdiction, but near to the country's shores, retired US doctors and nurses of all ages will staff the floating care centers. Look for regular helicopter services from major US cities to the ships, carrying both employees on rotations of at least a week, as well as patients.

It seems logical that, if the world's ultimate premier medical destination, the US, outlaws private medicine, then the US medical sector will relocate to the nearest unregulated location. And that, I predict, will be the high seas just outside the legal and physical reach of Obamacare.