I had never heard of Sal Fasano until 2006, when the well-traveled MLB veteran joined the New York Yankees as a back-up catcher -- a move that, unfortunately, required Fasano to trim back his unquestionably impressive fu-manchu mustache to comply with Boss Steinbrenner's rules on facial hair. Fasano has moved on since then, playing with three different minor-league organizations in as many years, soldiering on in spite of advancing age, failing knees, and already dim professional prospects that won't get any brighter.

As Sports Illustrated's Jeff Pearlman wrote last week, there's a very good reason why Fasano hasn't hung up his spikes yet -- his youngest son was born with hypoplastic heart syndrome. According to Pearlman, if Fasano “spend[s] so much as a second on a major league roster” this season, the Major League Baseball health plan will cover him and his family for the entire year. Salaries and health plans for minor-league catchers aren't what you'd call glamorous, and they certainly aren't generous enough to cover the costs incurred by the multiple surgeries needed to treat hypoplastic heart syndrome, which, as Pearlman notes, well-exceed $1 million. So Fasano just has to hope that he'll be called up, even if he doesn't see any playing time, and even if it's just for a day.

In short, Fasano is another of the many millions of Americans who, despite ongoing hard work and sacrifice, are still unable to manage the country's increasingly expensive health care system. But Glenn Beck has a solution for all the Sal Fasanos out there...

Go to Walgreens.

No, seriously. That's the “free-market” solution to rising health care costs that Beck offers in Arguing with Idiots. From pages 258-259:

That leaves those who attack the American health-care system with only one main argument: quantity versus quality. Sure, America has the best health-care system, they'll say. For those who can afford it-but too many can't.

Finally, an argument with some truth to it. For all of its unacknowledged virtue, our health-care system does still leave too many without coverage. The real question is what can rectify that more efficiently: a free market or a government monopoly?

Answer this question: What three letters can get you quality medical care for about half the price of a typical doctor's appointment and provide a 90-day supply of most prescription medications for less than a movie and popcorn, all while giving you the opportunity to pick up Cheetos, Mentos, Oreos, Pepto, and probably even this book-o.

The answer is W-A-L. You can get all of these things at your local Walgreens and/or Wal-Mart.

Walgreens is leading the way in the development of retail health clinics, which means that you can basically see a medical professional right in the pharmacy. Wait times are minimal, the cost is low, and you can grab a Whatchamacallit bar on the way out.

Beck goes on to write that a trip to a Walgreens health clinic is “about one-sixth the cost of a trip to the emergency room,” and that the medical care is “usually given by a master's-degree-educated nurse practitioner.” That's well and good, but there is also a pretty strict limit on the types of medical care you can receive at retail health clinics. One such outfit, MinuteClinic, makes clear that they treat only “minor” illnesses and injuries, and states explicitly that if you need X-rays or sutures, you will be “referred to another care setting.” For Sal Fasano, whose son needs heart surgery, a trip to Walgreens isn't going to solve anything. Nor will it help someone in need of chemotherapy or an MRI.

A 2006 study by the Department of Health and Human Services found that the five most expensive health conditions to treat were heart disease, cancer, trauma, mental disorders, and pulmonary conditions, and that these five conditions alone accounted for 31 percent of the total growth in health care spending from 1987 to 2000. To what extent can retail health clinics defray the expense of treating these conditions? Beck doesn't say -- indeed, it doesn't appear as though he even considered it.

To sum up, Beck's “free-market” solution is divorced from reality and completely unserious, which is pretty much what we've come to expect from Beck when it comes to health care and a host of other issues. As one of Fasano's backstop brethren once put it, it's déjà vu all over again.