In Sickness and in Health
Partners in Wellness
The way it stands now only a tiny minority of the population dies of old age, and that is deplorable, a telling indictment of our disease care system.
In fact, unless we begin to change our patriarchal paradigm, which has served or over served its purpose we are in grave danger of reaping the horrific consequences of a paradigm that has outlived it usefulness, and is trying desperately to maintain its hegemony. It has created this great nation, literally carving it out of sinew, stone and mountain. It has brought us the most amazing technologies, and with our European allies, we have conquered the world much to our advantage. In order to achieve this there is a trail of victims that stretches for many thousands of years. All over the planet males are acting in the most extreme ways. From the vile act of civilian assassination at the world trade center, to the equally vile response by the USA. At the end of each paradigm those in the waning paradigm try desperate measures to keep their power, while the new paradigm exerts more and more pressure for meaningful change.
Nowhere is it more apparent than in that very system that has taken the responsibility for the health and welfare of our country, yes, the “Health Care Profession” our health care system in not what it claims to be, and it is time for an important distinction to be addressed. We all recognize the power of branding when combined with repetition, whether it is a product or a word, think WMD (weapons of mass destruction) at his writing, there is a desperate struggle to find the means to pay the ever increasing rise in medical costs. Tragically the system is seldom questioned, only the means of payment is fought over. With the advent of HMO’s it was believed they would be able to instill in patients the need for prevention, it has been by any measurable means a tragic failure. Not because prevention does not work, but asking the medical and pharmaceutical companies to over see its implementation, is like asking the wolf to guard the hen house.
In this presidential election once more the uninsured (45 million and counting) have come to the forefront as a major issue in the debate. It is claimed that because they do not have health insurance they are a tax to the system, causing our health care costs to rise, and they are victims because they are not getting the health care they need in order to be as healthy as the insured. Given the startling rise in health care costs it would seem to me that insured people are at least as sick as the uninsured, and perhaps even more so. We are all agreed that life styles are the primary culprits in creating disease, the media is full of this information, the public has it coming out of their ears, and yet despite that obesity the number one cause of heart disease and diabetes, and a secondary contributor to almost all diseases is rising instead of decreasing. If we are saying that no matter the information available we are constitutionally unable to change or modify our behaviors, than we are doomed to more and more diseases and higher and higher costs which will eventually result in the inability to pay for reasonable medical care. Conversely, if we realize that having the information out there is only the first step, we can than begin to plan what steps really need to be taken that will turn us from a nation of couch potatoes, who eat the wrong foods, do not exercise, smoke and drink to excess, who know they do not have to responsible for their own health. Why? Because our existing medical system rewards them with drugs that disappear their symptoms, allowing them to continue with destructive life style habits, until they suddenly develop the cancers, heart disease and other deadly illnesses which are the inevitable result.
