I am a healthcare professional and the events of this past several weeks have given me a new idea for a national healthcare plan for everyone.  I am not a business person, so forgive me if I don't use the proper business terminology.  This will be a single player plan. 

Here is the plan in seven simple steps:

1.  Consolidate all the current various and sundry companies that provide medical care into about 4 or 5 big companies.

2. Conceive of an aggressive (and borderline fraudulent) marketing plan to  recruit investors into these companies.

3.  Insure everyone -- even people who have no assets, no income, and no prospects.

4.  These companies should borrow a lot of money from numerous sources, domestic and international.

5.  Consolidate even more.  Our goal would be to end up with two or three truly massive international conglomerates.

6.  Keep on getting deeper into debt until one by one these companies start to collapse.

7.  Now that these companies are "too big to fail" we can call up George W. Bush to bail them out! 

Tada!  There you have it, a National Healthcare System.

We better hurry, we only have a few months left (or maybe not, but that is another story...)

It seems that many people have totally unrealistic views of life in Alaska.  I lived just outside of Fairbanks for a few years and I thought I could clear up a few things:

Myth #1 - It is dark for six months and light for six months.

This is completely false.  You have to live well north of the Arctic Circle for it to be dark for more than one day.  Even in Fairbanks, which is just 100 miles south of the circle, you get daylight for four hours a day on the winter solstice.  This happens even though the sun is only up for about 2 and a half hours.  Twilight lasts a long time at the 66 degree north latitude.

Myth #2 - You need a tanning bed in the winter because it is so dark all the time.

This is completely false.  Tanning beds have no effect on the circadian rhythm.  In order to reset your biological clock in Alaska, you need to have photons of light hitting your retina.  In a tanning bed you get damaging UV light and have to wear eye protection.  It only helps you in the winter if you are superficial and value a tanned skin.

Myth #3 - The Alaska Government has been reformed.

This is completely false.  Alaska is a state without an income tax or a state-wide sales tax.  This lets the people in the government remain relatively popular despite the corruption.  If you want an example, just check out the <a href="http://www.gvea.com/about/hccp/"> Healy Clean Coal Power Plant </a> that was built but never worked.

Myth #4 - You get paid to live in Alaska.

This is actually true.  The Alaska Permanent Fund gives out yearly dividend checks to every Alaska resident.  Every man, woman, and child in the family gets their share.

That's all I can think of right now, but I am sure there are more myths out there.