Health Care or Sickness Care: Which Do You Think We Have?
We have a system in our country called “Healthcare.” And we are under the impression it has something to do with health. In fact, it has nothing to do with health and everything to do with just the opposite. It has everything to do with sickness.
We actually have what is called “Sickness Care” in our country.
What is “Sickness Care?”
We go to the doctor when we are truly sick; but only after we have tried all the over-the-counter solutions the television has educated us on which haven’t seemed to fully handle the problem. Then we get stronger medications and some expensive tests, many times resulting in no actual treatment, because their tests did not find anything “wrong.” Often times we are told, “Come back when it gets worse, as there is nothing we can do for that right now,” as if by waiting for the problem to get worse will then allow the treatment to work better than when the problem is “not bad enough yet.”
Is it any wonder why we put off our health concerns for so long, many times to the point of being too late? And again, why is this occurring?
It goes back to that “sickness care” mentality.
We are taught to focus on “treating” symptoms
instead of
Truly understanding why we have concerns and addressing those concerns directly and fully.
Additionally,
1)Educating the person with the concern to understand how they are creating their concern and
2)helping them change what they are doing so their concern can go away; thereby, giving them control of their condition, versus giving the control to the doctor and “hoping for a successful outcome.”
Consider the following statistics from 2000:
Deaths Due To Medical Intervention In The USA
Every year in the US there are:
- 12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries;
- 7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;
- 20,000 deaths from other errors in hospitals;
- 80,000 deaths from infections acquired in hospitals;
- 106,000 deaths from FDA-approved correctly prescribed medicines.
- The total of medically-caused deaths in the US every year is 225,000.
This made the Medical System the Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer in 2000. For the full article entitled Death By Medicine, click here
And how many Americans are aware of that?
And that was from the year 2000. What do you think has happened in the past 18 years? Has that statistic become better or worse?
In fact, it has become significantly worse. Medical intervention became the NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF DEATH in the US in the year 2003, except, no one is telling anyone about this fact.
One aspect of that statistic that is not taken into consideration is the newest rage in the under 20 year old population which is
- the number of deaths caused by prescription medication taken by someone other than the person given the prescription.
The fastest growing problem we have in the country right now is teenagers or younger taking prescription medication that were prescribed to a family member or other relative like a grandparent. This is leading to a lot of deaths.
Again, is anyone talking about this problem?
No, we are not. The adage being, “Ignore the statistics and push on with the business of healthcare.”
And is that fair?
I am told that the medical file on the young man who did the shooting at the school in Newtown, Connecticut, had him listed as being on a medication called Fanapt. This medication is prescribed for people who have schizophrenia.
The website for the medication says the following: Fanapt (iloperidone) is an antipsychotic medication. It works by changing the effects of chemicals in the brain. Fanapt is used to treat schizophrenia. Fanapt may also be used for purposes not listed in this medication guide.
It was said he had a form of Asperger’s Syndrome. I guess this is one of the other purposes not listed in the medication guide.
A partial list of side-effects for this medication from Drugs.com are listed as follows:
- Psychiatric side effects including restlessness, aggression, and delusion have been reported frequently.
- Hostility,
- decreased libido,
- paranoia,
- anorgasmia,
- confusional state,
- mania,
- catatonia,
- mood swings,
- panic attack,
- obsessive-compulsive disorder,
- bulimia nervosa,
- delirium,
- polydipsia psychogenic,
- impulse-control disorder, and
- major depression have been reported infrequently.
Interesting to note: If you look at all the other public shootings of this type, beginning with Columbine, each perpetrator was found to be on prescription medication, sometimes multiple medications for behavioral problems. And each one of those medications had as a listed side effect, increased psychotic behavior and potential for suicide.
Yet, is anyone talking about this problem?
No, we are not. The adage being, “Ignore the statistics and push on with the business of healthcare.”
Again, is that fair?
The Business of Healthcare
Would it be fair to say that in the United States, healthcare is a business? Of course it is.
And what is the purpose of any business? Ideally, it is to help and serve the customer. And by help and serve I mean to give the customer what they need to resolve their concern and to educate them on how to change their behavior to make sure the concern does not come back.
Many businesses do not practice that form of business: i.e. to help and serve. And the business of healthcare is no different.
All business, if they are to survive is about profit and repeat business. The business of healthcare is no different. It too has become more about profits and repeated service and less about true help. And appreciate when I say “true” help, I am talking about giving back control to the person with the problem, i.e. the patient. All patients.
And since we will all be a patient at one point or another in our lives, it becomes important to understand how to do this. Hence, the no longer being a health pessimist while waiting for conditions to get worse, because the business of being a doctor is to make a profit by ordering expensive tests and having the patient come for continuous treatment.
The business of being a doctor for many has become “trying” this remedy before understanding the mechanism of action. And it is okay, because if that “try” does not handle it, we have another “try” to use.
And sometimes, the first “try” requires a second support to make the first “try” more effective, or less problematic in the form of “side-effects.”
And when all the “trying” does not seem to handle the concern, and the problem becomes worse (like all problems do when they are not being properly addressed), it is okay because now they can offer you a more substantial treatment called surgery.
And with the surgery comes recovery that requires more treatment, possibly more medication and perhaps more surgery if the first “try” of surgery didn’t turn out as planned.
And now the business of medicine is truly a business that is profitable; profitable for
- the doctors,
- the labs who run the lab work,
- the technology companies who make the machines,
- the pharmaceutical companies that create the medicines, and somehow, believe it or not,
- the insurance companies who cover some, most or all of the treatment and procedures.
How is it possible?
How is it possible that all of these businesses are making profits if they are there to support the health and well-being of the people they serve? Sure, they are entitled to make a profit, but at what expense to you as the patient? Is the business model being applied appropriate?
Government Healthcare?
So now we have the government getting involved. Sure, they will tell you that government regulations are scrutinizing the Profit and Loss statements of all of these entities. They will even tell you that they are creating “fee schedules” appropriate for the different procedures and what will be paid and what is considered “reasonable and customary.” They are “standardizing” procedures and protocols designed to make everyone the same from one office, facility or hospital to another with the “One Size Fits All " mentality. And this will again create more problems within whatever system they roll out, as the system itself is the problem.
The perspective that “one size fits all ” does not work when you are dealing with individuals who don’t adhere to the “solution.”
That is why
- after nearly 100 years of medicine,
- countless dollars spent on research,
- development and implementation of different “theories ” of care;
- hundreds of foundations, societies and organizations to create more awareness of the latest dis-ease process expected to run rampant through our society; and
- all the time energy and effort going towards this big, huge, machine that is our “health care system ” has not yielded any true solutions in spite of the fact.
And with all the celebrities getting on T.V., radio, the internet and print adds asking you to “donate” to the latest “cause,”
I have to ask one simple question:
When did, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” become the means to an end?
This has not and never will lead to a true solution.
Why?
Because
- too many people from
- too many agencies are making
- too much money keeping you sick by coming up with fake solutions to problems they continuously look at from the wrong perspective.
We Need A Different Approach
I have a person I have trained under who practices in Mexico City, Mexico. And he has come to the United States to teach his technique called Biomagnetism. And he teaches it all over the world and has directly helped over 400,000 people with his therapy which is totally non-invasive, meaning the treatment involves no medication or surgery and is helping people recover from major health challenges such as cancer, heart problems, auto-immune conditions and even AIDS. In fact, he wrote a book in 1993 called Aids is Curable. Funny thing is, you cannot find any copies of the book even through AMAZON.
I wonder why?
He even presented cures for cancer to various foundations in major metropolitan areas of the United States and was told the same thing, “We are looking for treatments, not cures.”
Which makes one wonder, what happen to the Hippocratic Oath to “first do no harm”?
To create treatments that have no basis in solving the problem so that you, the consumer, can be put on life-time care of medication and or treatment, which when the time comes that it is no longer working and you now have a bigger concern, they can do expensive surgery that leaves you with a new problem requiring more intervention; when does it all end?
Quite simply, if you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results, IT doesn't end; but YOU WILL END.
Sure the Practitioner gets new body’s to work on, new patients to treat, and new, more involved dis-eases to consider, but do they ever solve the problem?
Of course not. It is great for business as this is a business model that will succeed and make lots of money for those who employ it.
But is this ethical? Is this moral? Is this acceptable?
I say “NO!!!” And I say, “This needs to STOP!!!”
So What Is The Solution?
We all need to do a better job at making our health a priority. We all need to come to the agreement that the current system is completely broken, and we need a complete overhaul of the system. We need to change our focus from “treating” problems to “solving” problems by understanding what is healthy and what is not. The word solve is defined as: to find the answer or explanation for; clear up; explain. 2. to work out the answer or solution to (a health problem).
We need to understand and teach the understanding that taking toxic chemicals into the body that suppress symptoms by altering normal physiology (how things work) does not truly improve a situation.
This is because you are now “outsourcing” your body’s ability to do its job.
Is this a true solution?
At best, it kicks the can down the road for you to have to deal with again, later. Only this time the problem is more involved and requires more serious intervention. That is the current way. This needs to become the old way.
Consider a “New and Radical” Approach
We need to honor the philosophy, “Just say NO to drugs.”
We need to adopt the perspective that money isn’t everything, but your health is.
How do we know this?
Because with all the money in the world and all the money “used” to do “research,” we still are no closer to solving
- cancer,
- heart disease,
- diabetes,
- high blood pressure,
- auto-immune disease, or any other “money maker”
- the current “healthcare system” has as a health problem.
Similarly, we have not learned how to make an engine that does not require gasoline in order to run our machinery.
We have not learned how to create energy that is free.
Why?
Because it comes down to the “haves, versus the have nots.”
We continue to perpetuate the mentality that money is everything. He who has the most wins.
So our elected officials who are in the top governmental offices in our nation’s capitol or in our state capitol, or even in our local municipalities continue to create a system that supports their financial gains at the expense of the masses who get to be blindly lead down the road to medication and/or surgery, preferably both.
What is Health?
So let us define some terms to support the change in the system.
Health is defined as “a state of optimum (best) physically, mentally, socially and spiritually, and not merely the absence of disease, sickness, infirmity or symptoms.”
The mentality that says, “If I feel good, I must be healthy” needs to be reassessed.
Science understands that we need to lose 60 percent of normal functioning in order to have a symptom. In other words, we have to lose 60 percent of our normal ability in order for the body to make you aware that you have a concern.
This screams at us we need to do a better job at understanding and applying this fact. Said differently, If you invested a dollar and you were not told of the loss of 60 percent of your investment until you lost 60 percent or more, would you use that investment strategy? Of course not. Any 5 year-old would understand for every 100 cents you give me (1 dollar), I give you only 40 cents back and keep the other 60 cents; they would know not to do that more than once. And yet we have grown adults who practice this every day.
In fact, we are educated to do this through the T.V., the internet, print ads, radio advertisements, etc., and we all fall for it and participate in it willingly. And is it right for advertisers to appeal to your emotional reality in an effort to get you to spend money on short-term relief without long-term solutions? Of course not. And we do it every day.
We have come to believe that simply being symptom free is acceptable because we do not understand nor have we been educated to know that symptom free means greater than 40 percent of normal function.
Is that acceptable to you? Only you can answer that question. And if the answer is no, then you need to do something about it.
What about “Health” Insurance?
I get phone calls just about every single day from people who ask the same question, “Do you accept my insurance?”
"My simple answer is “No.”
And the reason being if I accept your insurance, I am perpetuating the problem.
I am also cutting off my ability to control my costs and maintain a solvent business.
Do I make a huge profit? No.
Can I pay my bills and live within my means? Yes.
And that is the same as anyone is entitled to.
And the mentality we have that if I spend a monthly amount on my “health insurance,” then when I have a concern, my insurance should pay for me to get rid of my concern. Unfortunately, this too is one of the misconceptions we have in the United States.
We think that if we have health insurance, we do not have to worry about maintaining our health. We actually believe our insurance policy will cover what we need, when we need it. Except there is one, tiny little caveat to this mentality.
The insurance industry has a rule. “Care that seeks to Prevent Disease, Promote Health, Prolong and Enhance a person's quality of life IS NOT Medically necessary and IS NOT a covered service.” That is an excerpt from our government insurance program called Medicare.
Said differently, if care required to treat a problem gets a person out of symptoms, then that is where the responsibility of the care ends. Once symptoms are gone, it is not medically necessary.
Really?
Is that what a consumer is supposed to think when they agree to purchase a “health insurance policy?”
Isn’t the mentality in our country that, “When I agree to purchase a Health Insurance Policy, you as an insurance company take my premium, and when I need to use the policy, my policy covers my cost of care.”
Well the truth is, “We as the insurance company agree to sell you a policy in an effort to make a profit which is large enough to satisfy our shareholders who invest in our company so we can then offer the product of health insurance. We will then scrutinize the coverage and find any and all ways to reject the health claims in an effort to keep our premiums, stay profitable and satisfy our shareholders.”
In other words, “We will not cover you to be healthy. We will simply cover you to be symptom free. This way, we support the medical industry by only treating symptoms and help to perpetuate the mentality that health is simply an absence of symptoms.”
And so, the mentality ends up being treat the symptoms of disease, just don’t treat the cause of the disease. And so the Insurance Companies, the doctors, the labs, the pharmaceutical companies all make a profit from this system and you the subscriber and patient lose in the process. The system perpetuates health concerns and doesn’t do anything to address the underlying cause.
Medicines Two Choices for You