Many of us observed, with varying degrees of interest and disinterest, what transpired the past several months with “Health Care Reform” in the debates amongst our politicians and lobbyists and the passage of a Health Care Reform bill. I don’t think I’m particularly biased or alone in my thinking that HEALTH CARE REFORM did not actually happen. Much of the wheelin’ and dealin’ behind closed doors had to do with the “powers that be” making sure they would continue to exist and profit from people being sick and elected officials would continue to get the financial support they need to get re-elected.
Our current health care system is a disease based model, a “sick care system”, designed to “catch” things when they are often beyond repair or reversal, offering expensive drugs and surgery because many people want and sometimes demand a pill, an answer, a quick fix that only masks the symptoms until a new disease pops up. And doctors are trained to treat symptoms, push pills and think they have no other choice other than to pay lip service to diet and exercise, unless they switch paradigms and take time to re-educate themselves, eg. Christiane Northrup, MD, Andrew Weil, MD, Larry Dossey, MD, and others, sometimes losing credibility and withstanding ridicule for breaking rank. We’ve been conditioned to believe that Western medicine is so advanced with it’s technology, diagnostics, and designer drugs, that we’re safe and one day there will be a magical pill for cancer and other degenerative diseases.
Truth is, we’re getting sicker and sicker because we’ve been trained to focus on disease rather than assume a higher degree of individual responsibility for our health and well being, to educate ourselves about nutrition, to exercise, to grow or buy local organic foods, work fewer hours, reduce stressors, love well, etc. We’re getting sicker because our doctors aren’t trained in wellness care. The pressure to see as many patients as possible in a day, spending perhaps 5 – 10 minutes examining before sending us off with a ‘script, means that sickness care prevails.
For the record, I am not against drugs that truly save lives. I am opposed to drugs that perpetuate the illusion of health and allow diseases to develop silently over time. Did you know that iatrogenesis, fancy word for death by drug toxicity, is the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S.? Did you know that our city water supplies are contaminated with varying degrees of drugs such as statins, zoloft, viagra, etc.? Yes, our bodies are designed to rid themselves of toxins through sweat, defecation and urination.
The majority of us pay the price for our unhealthy choices, addictions, high levels of toxicity in our air, water and food supplies…higher insurance premiums based on our age and zip code rather than our actual health and behaviors. We pay whopping amounts for diabetes, obesity, end of life care (medicines/machines), mental illness, cancers, lupus, ALS, etc.(many of which are based in improper nutrition and toxicity.) The disconnect from our adapting and forgiving bodies with innate capacities to heal saddens me.
How long are we going to spend millions on research, dissecting illnesses into neat little categories and creating more drugs to hide the real causes? Do you think it’s “medicine” if you have to take the same pill for the rest of your life? Who gains from you being sick? Those of us 40 and above mostly know that health cannot be taken for granted as the accumulation of our lived lives, choices and a tiny % of genetics weigh in.
Are you ready to shift out of the paradigm of sickness care? Would you like to be the solution or the problem? Do you think you should have a choice between sickness care and wellness care when/if forced to pay for a health insurance policy?
Can you imagine your world full of healthy, vital people enjoying life, living with purpose, having your vacation days outnumber sick days?
Next blog: “Paradigm shift: sickness to wellness is a inside job”
