Because simply they are better than us...

Chicago Bears receive flu shots before the rest of us: Vaccinations to players despite a shortage that has caused the shutdown of all 16 flu clinics in the area and has left countless senior citizens still waiting for shots...

Though the Bears did not receive a letter [requesting whether top corporations' employees received flu shots improperly], Dale Galassie[, executive director of the Lake County Health Department,] said he would have hoped that young, fit professional athletes would not be offered the vaccine.

"I certainly wouldn't anticipate them meeting the Centers for Disease Control's high-risk category unless they interpret that they're under risk because of an extreme travel schedule," he said. "But they have their own plane. Everyone should be stepping up … and giving it to those who need it. I'd like to know why an athlete in top shape is being given a flu shot."

Now the article states that the Lake County Health Department reacted with outrage to this news, but just playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, in a capitalist system, shouldn't goods of a kind go to the highest bidder on an unfettered, free market?

Why no longer is there such an outrage to starving, malnurished children in the nation's ghettos? Why is it okay to lobby to cut off aide to single mothers because they continue to have numerous children despite living well below poverty levels, Reagan's so-called "Welfare Queens" but, by no means, don't cutoff granny's flu shot? And what about education, or lack thereof, in the crumbling areas of the city? Perhaps, by allowing the flu shot to be cometitively bought, it would encourage those precluded because of their financial restrictions, mainly elderly and "at-risk" persons, to work a little harder in life, pick themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps?

But that would be simply un-American....or would it?

Just a little food for thought on this fine Friday morning.