The health insurance
problem is not an insurance problem, it is a health problem
When people start talking about health insurance reform and how
to bring health insurance to the American people, they inevitably
end up in a ridiculous discussion about how to negotiate the cost
of drugs, how to provide drug discounts to senior citizens, or how
to engage in a system of managed care that denies medical services
to certain groups. It's all a rather useless exercise in shifting
paperwork, blame, or money from the pockets of one organization to
another. And in the end, it helps no one.
Health insurance reform needs to focus on the health, not the insurance,
because you can never solve a problem by shifting paperwork to another
party or bu denying services to an ever-expanding group of people.
It's similar to the way in which the federal government wants to
solve social security: just keep raising the qualification age until
it's so high that almost nobody lives that long. How's that for security? "If
you live long enough, we'll even pay you back all the money you worked
for!"
In the realm of health insurance, we need to start talking about
disease prevention. The only way we're going to lower the costs in
the long run is if we make our population healthier. And the only
way we're going to make people healthier is if we start admitting
the truth about the detrimental health effects of prescription drugs,
processed foods, junk foods, soft drinks, lack of physical exercise
and so on, and then start educating people about how to take control
of their health and reduce their risk of ever experiencing chronic
disease. That's how you solve the health insurance problem: by making
people healthy. What a novel idea, huh?
Right now people are getting all the wrong messages about their
health. They are being told that unhealthy foods are good for them.
The FDA has approved health claims that mislead consumers into thinking
things like sugary oatmeal is good for your heart because it contains
oats. It's a ridiculous claim. And yet the legitimate food claims
-- like olive oil prevents breast cancer, garlic prevents cancer,
raw nuts prevent heart disease -- are not allowed at all. In fact,
those are outlawed by the FDA. So today we have a regulatory environment
that actually prevents people from learning the truth about foods
that could help prevent disease. Thank goodness the FDA is protecting
us from all those dangerous health claims!
When was the last time the FDA ever allowed the claim that blueberries
reduce LDL cholesterol? You'll never see that claim because the blueberry
companies aren't going to engage in the corruption, bribery, and
political influence that would normally be required for the FDA to
approve something. Blueberries are just blueberries. They are straight
from nature. They are healthy. And they actually lower bad cholesterol
and improve cardiovascular health regardless of whether or not the
FDA allows such a claim.
Getting back to health insurance, you have to remember that the
health insurance business is just that – a business. There
are a lot of people making money pushing paper, providing unnecessary
medical procedures to the public and selling prescription drugs over
and over again to people who are undoubtedly suffering from downright
fatal side effects from the long-term consumption of such drugs.
It's big business and thus there is no real financial incentive for
anyone to reform the way health insurance works right now. Let's
face it: sick people generate revenues. It doesn't mean there's some
evil conspiracy behind it all, it just means that there's no financial
incentive to teach people how to be healthy.
Who makes money if people get healthier? Well, nobody does! The
only people who benefit from widespread health are the individuals
themselves. In fact, billions of dollars in profits would be lost
by Big Pharma if the country were suddenly swept up by a wave of
health. So don't look for any serious health insurance or health
care reform in your lifetime. Nearly every public discussion about
these topics is nothing but sleight of hand designed to distract
you from the real problem, which is the disease-care industry and
food & beverage industries that have no incentive to help people
get healthier.
Here's a final question in all of this: Why is it that other countries
can provide meaningful, full coverage health insurance for their
entire population at the equivalent of about $25/month? Of course,
I am referring to Taiwan. A country that provides full service health
coverage for only $25/month. And that includes maternity care, dental
care, everything! And it's the same $25 whether you're 16 or 60,
regardless of your health history. You can't be disqualified as long
as you're a Taiwan citizen.
Yet in the United States, some people are being charged $1000 per
month for only partial coverage. Why is that? Because health insurance
is extremely inefficient. Probably 80-90% of the money that goes
into health insurance is falling into the pockets of people who do
nothing but push paper around. It's not going to the bottom line
services that people really need. And virtually none of it is going
to disease prevention education or public advertising campaigns that
would inform people about how to take charge of their own health
and prevent chronic disease.
So all of this money is just going down a black hole. It's utterly
wasted. And today, the money spent on health care comprises a significant
portion of G&P. Something like $1 out of every $4 spent in this
country is spent on health care. We've also just learned that 50%
of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are caused by medical
bills. Think about that for a moment: the disease-care industry is
bankrupting our families and our nation. Only a fool would think
the answer is to introduce a drug discount card or some other such
nonsense. That's like tossing a cup of water on a raging house fire.
We don't need to be spending 25% of our G&P on health insurance
and health care services. What we should be doing is spending something
like 3% of the G&P on disease prevention and education. If we
were to do that, within one generation we could slash our health
care costs to perhaps 1/20th of what we're spending today. And that
would bring a significant enhancement in quality of life for everyone.
If you want to pay off the national debt, take the money you would
save from health care and pay down the national debt with it. The
quality of life would go up, the debt would go down, and within a
generation, we could be a nation of healthy, debt-free individuals,
rather than the nation we are now, which is regrettably the most
diseased population in the history of the world combined with the
greatest national debt ever witnessed in the history of the United
States of America.
It took some real short-term thinking to put us in this mess. And
it's going to take some tough choices to pull us out of it. Frankly,
I'm not sure the politicians and voters have the will to make any
tough choices at all. As long as their drugs are paid for by insurance,
and as long as Medicare covers Viagra, they're sufficiently sedated
to prevent any real cry for reform.
That's part of what prescription drugs really accomplish, by the
way: the keep the population doped up in a never-ending state of
brain fog from which it is impossible to rally enough people to demand
real reform. Think about it: according to a new study published in
The Lancet, the Vioxx drug alone seems to have killed as many as
60,000 Americans. Where's the outcry? Where are the demonstrations?
The marches on Washington? The declaration of war against Big Pharma?
If terrorists killed 60,000 Americans, we'd be bombing yet another
nation into dust. If an herb killed 60,000 Americans, the FDA would
be screaming about how we have to regulate all herbs to "protect
the people!" If a virus killed 60,000 Americans, we'd call it
one of the worst outbreaks since the 1918 bird flu outbreak.
But when a prescription drug kills 60,000 people, the FDA is all
but silent. The CEO of a drug company warns us not to "overreact." The
newspaper headlines dedicate their space to the Michael Jackson trial.
The politicians argue about whether cell phones should be banned
on the road. And, don't forget, the Superbowl is coming, too! Apparently,
there are a lot more important things on the minds of Americans than
the fact that 60,000 of their family members, neighbors and loved
ones have been killed by just one drug. And hundreds of thousands
more are killed each year by other drugs, medical mistakes, failed
surgical procedures and the like.
What kind of society has this become anyway? Has this population
been so dumbed down, doped up and brainwashed by pharma-funded TV
advertisements that it can't see the crimes against humanity taking
place right before our very eyes? We get front-page news and priority
cable coverage when twelve people die in a train wreck. But when
5,000 times as many people die from a prescription drug, there's
no news coverage at all. Silence.
And you know why? Because it all happens quietly. In hospital beds,
family rooms, and ambulances. Each victim slips away quietly, and
their death certificate gets recorded with the phrase, "natural
causes." There's no footage to show on the evening news. No
sound bite. No wreckage. No explosion. No guided missiles or embedded
war footage. So it isn't newsworthy, apparently.
And, of course, there's the fact that most of the news organizations
in this country are beholden to the drug companies for their financial
lifeline (advertising). Don't discount the power of half a billion
dollars to influence the day's news. What news organization would
possibly want to expose the pharmaceutical catastrophe and risk angering
their top advertisers?
In looking at what's really happening today, I'm astonished. It's
beyond outrage, really. I'm just astonished that people will take
this treatment and think of it as normal. Maybe it's the fluoride
in the water supply. Maybe it's the brain-busting hydrogenated oils
in the foods, or the MSG found throughout every grocery store in
the country. Maybe it's all the TV programming. Or maybe you, me,
and a handful of other people who read this site have been time-warped
into bizarro world where all the laws of sanity have been reversed,
and someone put the most insane people of all in charge. |