Ninety Dollars Per Month Per Employee

A school district in Michigan put a clinic in a converted classroom. Cement-block walls. A pencil sharpener still hanging where the kids used to crank it. Bridge Michigan walked those classrooms. The superintendent said it out loud. This is health care the way it is supposed to be.

Corunna pays ninety dollars a month for each of its 255 employees. Two days a week. No copay. No deductible. Every visit that morning was booked for at least a half hour.

Thirteen people came in. Poison ivy. Pink eye. Blood pressure. A kid's sports physical. They left with nearly $550 in medicine and paid nothing for it.

I am not anti-insurance. Keep a policy for the wreck. About 110 of those staffers still carry the school plan for the hospital. The superintendent's math is the same one we use. One family, strep in the middle of the night, one ER, and that virus can cost the pool more than a year of this clinic.

We take care of patients for a flat monthly fee. No claim. No network. You call. We see you. The number on the door is the number you pay.

Ninety dollars is a price. It just happens to live down the hall from the gym.