A Second Opinion

[Guest guest]

Moderators Note: The American people make more trips to the doctor and take more

pills than anyone in the world. ( about one out of every 6 dollars spent in the

USA is spent on our " health care " system. If that stuff brought health we

wouldn't be sick, we would be the healthiest people on the planet. We use more

allopathic medicine than anyone in the world and we are the sickest. So what are

the conclusions of this article? Why that we need even more allopathic

treatments and medicine of course. This system is not designed to bring about

health, but is designed to bring about illness which translates into more

customers. And if you really want to bring down the death rate, have the doctors

stop practicing for some reason. (It always goes down).

 

We do need sickness insurance coverage for all, but for health we need access to

good nutritious foods, good nutritional supplements, good nutritional

information, good unpolluted water, good unpolluted air, healthy soils, clean

rivers, education of the populace about what brings real health and that health

is not achieved by being treated medically with more poisons.

 

Thats all, And the chances of that happening are slim and none.

 

Healthy people are not good customers for the medical insurance, drug, doctor

and hospital business. They want you to be " sick " as that is where the " money "

is. They want you to die early after they have used the system to extract most

of your assets and used the system to transfer huge amounts of public money to

private pockets..They want you to die just about shortly after the time that the

system might have to pay you something back, little though that may be. And if

you don't die, they want you living in poverty to pay all of those continuing

medical expenses.

 

Yes, we have the " greatest health care sytem in the world " . It is great for the

doctors, the drug companies, the insurance companies, the hospitals, the

politicians, and all of the others who are feeding at that socially enginered

trough. But for the patent it isn't so hot, his health has the least priority of

the sytem and they don't spend much real quality time trying to achieve

health as opposed to the time spent racking up and obtaining fees . F.

 

Now read this article. F.

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/opinion/28HERB.html?th

 

June 28, 2004OP-ED COLUMNIST A Second OpinionBy BOB HERBERT

 

In an article a few years ago in The Journal of the American Medical

Association, Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine took

a look at the overall health of the American people, and compared conditions

here to those in other industrialized countries.

 

What she found was disturbing.

 

" The fact is that the U.S. population does not have anywhere near the best

health in the world, " she wrote. " Of 13 countries in a recent comparison, the

United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available

health indicators. "

 

She said the U.S. came in 13th, dead last, in terms of low birth weight

percentages; 13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality over all; 13th for

years of potential life lost (excluding external causes); 11th for life

expectancy at the age of 1 for females and 12th for males; and 10th for life

expectancy at the age of 15 for females and 12th for males.

 

She noted in the article that more than 40 million Americans lacked health

insurance (the figure is about 43 million now) and she described the state of

Americans' health as " relatively poor. "

 

" U.S. children are particularly disadvantaged, " she said, adding, " But even the

relatively advantaged position of elderly persons in the United States is

slipping. The U.S. relative position for life expectancy in the oldest age group

was better in the 1980's than in the 1990's. "

 

The article was published in the summer of 2000. At the time Japan ranked

highest among developed countries in terms of health, and the United States

ranked among the lowest.

 

Last week I talked with Dr. Starfield, an internationally respected physician,

professor and researcher, and asked whether the situation had improved over the

last four years.

 

" It's getting worse, " she said, noting, " We've done a lot more studies in terms

of the international comparisons. We've done them a million different ways. The

findings are so robust that I think they're probably incontrovertible. "

 

The U.S. has the most expensive health care system on the planet, but millions

of Americans without access to care die from illnesses that could have been

successfully treated if diagnosed in time. Poor people line up at emergency

rooms for care that should be provided in a doctor's office or clinic. Each year

tens of thousands of men, women and children die from medical errors and many

more are maimed.

 

But when you look for leadership on these issues, you find yourself staring into

the void. If you want to get physicians' representatives excited, ask them about

tort reform, not patient care. Elected officials give lip service to health care

issues, but at the end of the campaign day their allegiance goes to the highest

bidders, and they are never the people who put patients first.

 

To get a sense of just how backward we're becoming on these matters, consider

that in places like Texas, Florida and Mississippi the politicians are dreaming

up new ways to remove the protective cloak of health coverage from children, the

elderly and the poor. Texas and Florida have been pulling the plug on coverage

for low-income kids. And Mississippi recently approved the deepest cut in

Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled that has ever been

approved anywhere in the U.S.

 

( Mod. Note: this group doesn't have many assets to drain, so exclude them from

the system and go get a " good customer " preferably the ones with a lot of money.

But the face that this industry puts on is " we care " and all the rest of those

phoney platitudes that they promote.)

 

Even the affluent are finding it more difficult to obtain access to care. For

patients with insurance the route to treatment is often a confusing maze of

gatekeepers and maddening regulations. The costs of insurance are shifting from

employers to employees, and important health decisions are increasingly being

made by bureaucrats and pitchmen interested solely in profits.

 

In the maddening din that passes for a national conversation in this country,

distinguished voices like Dr. Starfield's are not easily heard.

 

Echoing so many other patient advocates, she continues to call for movement on

two crucial needs: coverage for the many millions who currently do not have

access to care, and the development of a first-rate primary care system, which

would bring a sense of coherence to a health care environment that is both

chaotic and wildly expensive.

 

" We don't have any national health policy at all in this country, " said Dr.

Starfield.

 

( Mod. Note: Sure, we have a national health policy. I just explained it at the

top of this article. It is just geared to the business of disease which is the

opposite of health. That's really why it should be called disease insurance,

disease care, etc. and to be really accurate it should be called the disease

business.)

 

And there is no sign of that changing anytime soon.

 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |