The Art Of Health Care

Sometimes when and where you least expect it, answers to our most complicated questions are revealed and we are left to wonder why we didn't think of them sooner.

For the Obama administration and all of our "elected" legislators, the plan for our so-called national health care issue has been found in Italy.  

The Italians, (who have not been able to maintain a stable government in decades, if ever) just might be able to provide the United States, (where a stable government can't seem to find and maintain answers to fairly direct issues), guidance for dealing with our national health care dilemma.  

Sicilian professor of pathological anatomy, Vito Franco of the University of Palermo, is a medical expert in the "study of famous subjects of Renaissance artworks", according to a story by Jeff Israely on TIME.com, January 9, 2010.  Professor Franco studies the characters in famous master paintings and presented his conclusions of their illnesses at a congress on human pathology last fall in Florence, Italy.  

Professor Franco has concluded that Mona Lisa suffered from xanthelasma, which is the accumulation of cholesterol under the skin. Who knew?  From the painting he determined that she had a fatty tissue tumor called lipoma on her right hand.  And that diagnosis without x-ray! 

Think of all the money the health care industry could save with more "medical experts" like the good Professor Franco.  Imagine the savings workers could enjoy with lower insurance costs. Corporations could save millions (billions?) of dollars each year on 

coverage for workers. All it would require is a canvas, a brush, oil paints, a trained eye and good glasses! 

Now if Professor Franco could only tell us how to diagnose a bloated bureaucracy.

Rick B. Baker 

January 10, 2010

Rochester, NY 

© 2010 by R. Burnett Baker

Bottom painting:  "Mona Lisa at 12" by Fernando Botero, 1978