Growing up in a small town in Wyoming I was exposed to a weekly ritual which I didn't realise was unusual until I was in my mid 20's. The procedure was routine screening for all elementary students, EVERY WEEK, for throat strep infections. There are several amusing parts of the story, the first is the number of GP's I've seen who were amazed at my lack of gag reflex (I'm also gay - insert your own joke here.) The second part is how socialist programs were directly responsible for saving children who grew up to be the teabaggers of today.
I started Kindergarten in 1979 in a rural town of 300 in Wyoming. The town was 45 miles from the nearest hospital and an hour from the nearest big town with major services. The economy of the town and surrounding area was highly dependant on agriculture, as well as oil, gravel & bentonite mines, and uranium mines. During the late 70's and early 80's Uranium caused an influx of people, as did oil exploration, which bottomed out in the mid 80's. The effect of this was that at 8 years old I knew the meaning of the price of oil. Oil over $30 a barrel meant we got new school books and that my parents, who were teachers, would have raises and I would have new clothes and toys. A price below $20 meant lean times for the schools and my home, and the loss of jobs that would result in friends having to move away. The control that the mineral industry had (and continues to have) over the social network in Wyoming is great, and controls politics in the state. These factors, along with a small population, resulted in my home county being the most republican county in Wyoming, which is saying something.
There were several other significant things happening in my hometown around this same time (just so you get the full atmosphere of the place I grew up in). When I started kindergarten, it was the first year that the class was held in the school with the rest of the classes, prior to 1979 it was held in a trailer house. In addition the streets had only been paved in the past ten years, and we still had a spray truck driving down the streets at night in the summer spraying into the sky to kill mosquitos. (Another socialist program!)
During my 8 years in elementary school (my parents held me back 1 year early on due to maturity issues) every week had the same terrible ritual. Tuesday mornings the school nurse would come around to each classroom and swab each child's throat to be tested for strep. At the time there were about 120 kids in the school, and each child was swabbed and identified, and then sent to the lab for analysis. In those 8 years I would have had a throat swab every week of every month while school was in session. 180 days = 36 weeks x 8 years, which is 288 individual tests. Perhaps in those 8 years I maybe have missed a couple each year, so it's safe to say I received well over 250 throat swabs. The effect of all these years is that my doctors have been astonished on the occasions I've received them as an adult by the fact that I have no response to them, which has lead to some amusing and awkward observations about how good I am at suppressing my gag reflex.
As I'd mentioned above, it wasn't until my mid 20's that I discovered that this wasn't something everyone had to do. I had seen a GP who again noted my unflinching acceptance of the swab and I told him about having to do it in elementary school. His response was disbelief, which surprised me. That day I returned to work and told my co-workers about my silly doctor who'd never heard of mandatory school testing for strep. I got blank stares all around. I later met my partner, who went to medical school, and told him about the tests. He didn't believe me that it actually happened for the longest time.
I'd never been clear on how wide spread this was in Wyoming, whether it was a state-wide program or purely a local phenomenon. In the past month I was there visiting my parents and was visiting with my mother about it when she revealed what the source of the program was. An older couple who were our neighbors lost one of their children to strep throat because of the relative isolation. While the town itself was 45 miles from the nearest hospital, the town was the centre of a rural community that extended another 30 miles into the back-country, trips on gravel roads could be at a max of 40 mph in the best of weather, which meant that children did not regularly receive medical care. After the death of this young child in a small community it was determined that a child should never die because of access to healthcare again.
What was the cost of this program? I have no idea - although I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to figure out, 120 students times 36 tests per year. How was it paid for? Again I have no idea - there was never any reference to it as being some kind of special program, in fact as a child it was as if it was natural; the sun comes up in the morning and tuesday morning the nurse comes by to shove a stick down your throat. The program is no longer operating as people have become accustomed to driving further more often and the relative isolation has been reduced. In addition, and most importantly, in my teens the public health nurse and doctors from 45 miles away begin coming down once a week so people wouldn't have to drive for appointments. Originally these appointments were held in a converted trailer house (do you see a theme?), but in later years and the help of federal dollars, the town was able to build a nice brick building to house the clinic. These dollars were AML funds (abandoned mine) and has helped cement a place in the community for healthcare. If the doctors were to stop showing up on their weekly schedule you can be sure that the community would scream.
So the largest irony is this - those children who benefited from the mandatory testing (in addition to so many other programs that rural communities survive on i.e. interstate highway program, Rural Electrification, BLM subsidies, wool subsidies, education) have now become anti-government zealots who think the government should get out of their lives. The reality is that without them, many of them would not be here today, which of course we already now. The interesting revelation for me was to realise that this fiscally conservative/anti-government community had recognised the need for "socialist healthcare" 40 years ago.