Now that at least parts of healthcare reform are back on the table, or perhaps under the bus, as I await my appointment as EHR Czar, I got to thinking about what other aspects of healthcare might be reformed.

It occurred to me that our system can fix almost anything we throw at it.  We are capable of fixing things that affect one person in a hundred thousand.  So, what can the US healthcare system not fix—other than EHR?  Things that afflict one hundred thousand out of one thousand.

Those are what I would like Congress to fund; the simple everyday minutias that make me feel gobsmacked each time I walk out of the front door and into the apocalypse of those in need of healing.  I stopped for a coffee this morning, and completed the transaction with a mute.  I do not know whether she was legally mute or just being her ill-mannered self, but she managed to complete the entire transaction without uttering a single sound, not even a grunt, a hand gesture, or a wayward glance in my direction.

I have reached my point of no return when it comes to those around me choosing to act rudely or unsociably.  Manners are free.  It costs nothing to exhibit good manners.  Unfortunately, it apparently costs nothing to exercise bad manners.

Maybe bad manners are an illness.  People cut off, flip off, and rip off others without giving it a second thought.  There are days when I feel as though the Seven Deadly Sins are alive and well and having a resurgence.  Pride, greed, envy, lust, sloth, anger, and gluttony.  I am surprised nobody has added anything to the list, but it is not from lack of effort.

I had thought about pushing for healthcare legislation to place more funding towards curing hair loss—not due to any personal insecurities surrounding that issue.  But the more I thought about it the more I felt how much better we would be as neighbors if someone invented a civility pill—take two in the morning twenty minutes before eating.

I have made it my mission to go out of my way to talk to people, especially those who do not wish to speak, those who glance the other way as you pass them on the street.  I must admit, sometimes I do it just because I know it will make them uncomfortable.  It costs nothing to say hello.

And so, as I await my appointment as EHR Czar, or to be the Grand Poobah of one of those Middle Eastern countries lacking poobahs, I am practicing civility.