Health Care
When will Americans finally begin to realize that there is not a single component of the health care industry that benefits from preventing illness? Are you listening, America? THE MEDICAL INDUSTRY DOES NOT BENEFIT BY KEEPING YOU WELL. This is the fundamental, inevitable flaw in a for-profit health care system: the system profits by keeping you ill.
So it is in the interests of the health care system that you are obese, that you don’t exercise, that you smoke, that you drink, that you watch television, that you biggie-size your meals, that you don’t know what’s in the food you eat, that there is radiation and asbestos, that there are wars and civil disturbances, accidents and sickness.
Sure, the health care reforms just passed by Congress will help lots of people. But some Republicans– not very many of them, obviously– and many Democrats are also right that real reform has to start with the entire system which currently focuses on treatment rather than prevention.
Just one example: the makers of Crestor, a cholesterol medication, are crowing that a recent study concluded that healthy people who take Crestor every day (at more than $3.50 a pop) are 50% less likely to have a heart attack than healthy people taking a placebo. Wow. Let’s get all the healthy people on this drug! Now!
A well-paid doctor who received money from AstraZeneca, says, would you let your patient walk out of your office without signing up? Hell no! The only problem: well, only a very small number of healthy people have heart attacks. Only about 1 in 500. So a 50% reduction translates into a difference of 1 in a 1000, of which a large majority will survive the heart attack anyway. But the cost of providing 1000 people with Crestor for a year is over $1 million. Good deal? Then add in the fact that some cholesterol drugs have now been implicated in causing type 2 diabetes. They know that at the time they signed everyone up to a drug you will never be able to stop taking once you get started on it.
The alternative: walk more, eat more vegetables and less fatty foods.
Thinking of treating somebody like an object? Don’t do it. It sends a bad message that will not be quickly forgotten.
The drug cartels are battling it out in Mexico for… what? For routes into the U.S. In theory, of course, there are no routes. The U.S. government spends $13 billion a year ensuring that there are no routes. Actually it’s more than that: think of all the people incarcerated for drug offenses, or offenses related to drug use.
The idea that America cannot “afford” the health care bill is ridiculous. To believe it, you have to assume that all or most uncovered medical conditions are not treated. That, of course, is not true. They are often treated in emergency wards, and they may be treated– in a different form– later in life in a chronic care facility, but there will be treatment and it will cost somebody and it will have an impact on the economy.
What universal health care coverage does is apply some rationality to the cost of health care. When you think about it, insurance is a marvelous concept. Since nobody knows who will ever get a disease or serious illness, why not commit, in advance, to pool our resources and treat everyone? When John McCain insists that the Republicans will campaign in November on repealing it– he’s dreaming. Since the Republicans have no alternative, his campaign will consist of “we will take away your health care”. About that for a slogan!
Even the Republicans are probably not that stupid. They will probably have to come up with some kind of weird alternative plan. The problem is, there is no alternative. They will come up with something that sounds like an alternative, but is really a variation of what the Democrats just passed, but with something that looks more “free enterprise” in it.