the truth about health care reform

[Guest guest]

" NewsTarget Insider " <insider

/\/ewsTarget Insider: the truth about health care reform

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 10:10:17 -0700

 

 

 

 

TODAY'S FEATURES:

------------------------------

 

Where's the health in health reform?

http://www.NewsTarget.com/009127.html

 

 

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Where's the health in health reform?

On the heels of frightening statistics about how diseased the U.S.

population has become in the last three decades, there's a lot of talk

these days about health care reform. The uninsured need coverage.

Senior citizens on fixed incomes need to be able to afford their

medications. The mentally disturbed need to be treated. Children need

their medicine, we're told.

 

But whether the solutions come from the far left (socialized medicine)

or the far right (free drugs for seniors!), there's one glaring

problem in all the talk about health care reform: nobody is talking

about fixing the health problem.

 

The entire debate about health care has been framed in terms of a

financial crisis. The only thing wrong with peoples' health, we're

told, is that there's not enough money to treat everybody. If we only

had more money for drugs, more money for surgery, and more money to

find that elusive cure for cancer we've been promised since the

1970's, then all our health care concerns would be a thing of the past.

 

All of this, of course, is a calculated distraction from the real

health problem in this country. And that problem, put bluntly, stems

from the fact that we have known toxins in the food supply, we have a

legalized prescription drug industry that kills 100,000 Americans each

year (even according to the defenders of organized medicine), and our

government regulators (the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture) appear to be so deeply dedicated to

promoting the very industries they're supposed to regulate that public

safety has been all but abandoned.

 

In other words, the health of our population is collapsing not because

we don't have enough drugs, but because we have allowed the creation

of unholy alliances between government and profit-hungry private

industry that result in the systemic poisoning of our people. They are

poisoned with hydrogenated oils, chemical sweeteners, and artificial

colors made from petroleum products. They're poisoned by prescription

drugs that cloud their minds, alter their brain chemistry and kill

them with strokes and heart attacks.

 

Just one class of prescription drugs, COX-2 inhibitors, has now killed

more Americans than died during the entire Vietnam War, and that's

according to the FDA's own whistleblower, Dr. David Graham (a senior

drug safety researcher). Two months ago, a rigged FDA panel -- made up

largely of people with financial ties to drug companies -- decided

that killing 60,000 Americans is not enough to actually ban a drug, so

they stamped it as " safe " and now these drugs are right back on the

market, being sold to millions.

 

And yet the health care reform debate rages on, focusing on how we can

make these dangerous drugs more affordable to people. This is how the

federal government comes up with nonsensical ideas like the Medicare

" drug discount card. " If senior citizens sign up, they can buy drugs

in the U.S. at monopoly prices that are only 500% more expensive than

the same drugs in Canada, Europe or Mexico. But this is a huge savings

(we're told) over the 700% markup people usually pay in the United

States, thanks to a policy of drug protectionism fully enforced by the

FDA. Our government claims to support free trade, unless of course it

harms the profits of politically-connected corporations like those who

characterize Big Pharma.

 

All of this, of course, is Big Government at its finest. And it's all

being done for your own protection, didn't you know? Drugs from Canada

are very, very dangerous, we've been told. (I have a question: if

drugs from Canada started killing Americans, how would we know? So

many Americans are falling over dead from prescription drugs right now

that it would be hard to sort them out.)

 

If that's not enough, Big Government USA has more solutions for you,

too. Don't worry about your food choice or diet, just be sure to drink

lots of milk, because the dairy industry is tight with the feds. Don't

worry about that mad cow disease from a Texas cow (that reluctantly

took the USDA seven months and three rounds of testing to finally

admit), because the beef industry has executives in key positions at

the USDA, and they're out to protect your health, too.

 

Don't worry about all the children being drugged up with

antidepressant drugs -- the very same drugs that have been banned from

use in children in the U.K. The kids need those drugs. Their brain

chemistry needs a fixin'.

 

Come to think of it, don't worry about anything. Just keep working at

that job, filing your annual taxes, and writing off 25% (or more) of

your discretionary income on drugs, surgical procedures and

chemotherapy. And when you die broke, you'll be in good company:

nearly one-third of personal bankruptcies in this country are now due

to medical bills.

 

Boy, do we have a solution for you!

Uncle Sam will soon try to sell you a new health care solution. It's

called socialized medicine, and what it means is that everybody is

still just as sick as they were before, but now the whole system is

streamlined, with astounding new efficiencies, because it will be

managed and coordinated by the most efficient, compassionate

administrative system in the world: the U.S. government.

 

I can't wait to start standing in line.

 

And nowhere will you hear anything about what should really be done to

prevent chronic disease and enhance health in this country. Things

like banning all hydrogenated oils, banning the advertising of junk

foods to children, banning direct-to-consumer advertising of

prescription drugs, and making some long-deserved criminal arrests of

key executives at drug companies for hiding what they've known for a

long, long time: that their products outright kill people.

 

Health care reform is meaningless without health reform. You can't

alter the health of the population unless you address the underlying

causes of disease: junk foods, toxic food additives and ingredients,

overzealous drug promoters, lack of fresh air, sunlight and water, and

nutritionally ignorant doctors who still don't teach patients how to

be healthy.

 

If we limit our debate to who gets health benefits and who pays for

them, we will only find ourselves funding an increasingly disastrous

system of financial life support for chronic disease. Because, let's

face it, our modern health care system isn't health care at all: it's

a disease management system. It doesn't teach prevention (mammograms

aren't prevention, they're detection), it doesn't teach nutrition (see

related ebook on nutrition) (many doctors still don't believe foods

have anything to do with health), but it sure does teach dependence on

the system.

 

So prepare to cover your ears as this health care reform debate gets

underway, especially during the run-up to the 2008 election. Health

care reform will be the hot topic. Republicans will say they're going

to save the nation by drugging everybody. Democrats will say they're

going to save the nation by giving us all equally bad medical care.

But nobody will be talking about the issue that matters: actually

making people healthier.

 

Treating disease is big business in this country

You see, disease is big business, while health means a loss of

revenues. Disease keeps people dependent on the system, while health

sets people free. Disease turns individuals into victims, while health

turns them into capable human beings. Disease is about centralized

authority and control, while health is about individual freedoms and

free thinking.

 

That's why you'll never hear any politician, any government, or any

disease-care business teaching people how to be healthy. The ideas of

health, freedom and free will go against everything they stand for.

They need a crisis so that the people have to come to them for

answers. They need a crisis to justify profit-building programs

(mandatory mental health screening for everyone!) that keep them in

business. They need a crisis to get elected.

 

Once they get elected, they will consistently ally with the

health-harming corporations that keep people diseased. Consider

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, who recently vetoed a hard-won bill

that would have banned junk food in public schools. With 10% of

Connecticut's high school students now overweight, Governor Jodi Rell

sided with the soda companies.

 

Don't be fooled by the words of politicians when it comes to health

care reform. Don't be fooled by the frame of the debate. They're

debating a distraction while ignoring the fundamental question: how

will we make our people healthier?

 

Until we answer that question, we will be mired in chronic disease,

skyrocketing health care costs and bankruptcy at all levels: personal,

corporate and government. We will continue to lose our cost

competitiveness in the global marketplace, we will be unable to

educate our health-impaired youth (Johnny can't learn too well 'cuz

his brain is malnourished), and we will soon find that we have

ventured too far down the path of national health ruin to reverse it.

 

Overview:

 

* Where's the health in health reform?

 

Source: http://www.newstarget.com/009127.html