Title:  S'hmo's Crime (Sequel to "The Unspoken")
Author:  Ster Julie
Series: TOS
Rating:  G
Part 1/1


Shmo--American Yiddish for a foolish or stupid person

--ooOoo--

Sarek reactivated the holopic his son had retrieved from T'Pau's collection.  He ran a finger over his exiled brother's features, caressing them as he remembered the brash young man with erroneous ideas.

His crime?  He had contrived a plan, a plot really, to privatize medicine all over Vulcan.  Healers would be put into various groups and patients would be assigned to their care.  Neither the grouping nor the assignments would be made in a logical manner.  Appointments with the healers would be made for some far-off date.  Appointments with specialists would take even longer.  If a patient was deemed worthy, he or she could stay in a hospital, but only for a few days of care, whether or not the patient was cured.

It was a heinous crime indeed.  And not only that.  S'hmo was vain enough to name this program after himself.  What is it you ask?

Why, it was the same dreaded system that plagued Earth in its early space-going years, the Health Maintenance Organization, otherwise known as the HMO.

End