Health(s)care

Health(s)care! Am I being dramatic? Depends on your level of healthcare. Is healthcare scary? Depends on who you are.

What happened?

Here’s a summary:

The left and the right are arguing about healthcare proposals and legislation, while both parties are accepting campaign funds from the healthcare food and pharmaceutical industry lobby. Is it helping? This argument has been going on for a long time and healthcare costs continue to rise while general health, disease and disorders continue to rise. Why? Is it the insurance companies? Is it the labor unions? Is it the cost of medical education; medical equipment; medical advancement or research? Or, is their something else going on? Why is it getting so much more expensive? All the things I have mentioned above are essentially the same as they were 40 years ago. Did something change? What?

Survey says… ‘Health’.

The problem isn’t healthcare; the problem is ‘health’. There’s just less of it. It seems we no longer have a ‘health’ care system; we have a ‘disease’ care system. Not unlike a fireman that creates fires so he can put them out and be a hero; we have created dis-ease, so now we can cure it. It may have been un-intentional (see the law of unintended consequences), but in our rush to make more for less, we made it worse. It doesn’t make sense, unless you’re on the profit end of the deal. That is, selling cheap food with unhealthy things in it to increase your profit margins, or promoting unhealthy amounts, or selling drugs to deal with the ailments caused by the unhealthy foods. So intentional or not, we need to be aware of what we did and start fixing it.

Why is it a health scare?

Because, if we don’t start fixing this, the costs will continue to cut into our quality of care, and that is already a problem now. Is our government watching our back, or, looking the other way; or worse, actively contributing to the problem? What is the problem? How did we go from health care to health scare? It seems special interests have infiltrated our government through politicians whose campaigns are supported by industries that are profiting from the demise of our health. All this in the name of increased quality of life (or better living through science that profits them, not us). The rhetoric is so thick that it becomes increasingly difficult to see through the fog of opinions to get the facts and relevant knowledge. America is consuming many food products that are contributing to the disease care system and we seem not to notice, probably because we are inundated with commercial advertisements telling us how healthy everything is. Recent concerns about ‘corn syrup’, which seem justifiable, were met with an industry response of, ‘Hey, how can it be unhealthy, it’s from corn’. And of course to trick us, they changed the name on the label From ‘corn syrup’ to ‘corn sugar’. This may trick some, but hopefully no all. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf. The majority of food products now have ingredients in them that contribute to health disorders, including: obesity, cancer, diabetes, and a multitude of related health problems. Better living through chemistry, mold, additives, preservatives? What are the main culprits (besides special interest influence in govermnet)? candidates seem to be high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, aspartame and regular overdoses of sugar. The victim is the consumer. The FDA approves additives and processes that do not come naturally in food. Our bodies are used to eating ‘real’ food, but apparently reacts differently to food additives and chemicals as well as overdoses (too much of a good thing). Since these modern miracles of better food through chemicals, mold and manipulation, the percentages of cancer, obesity, and general disorders have increased on a per capita basis.

Diabetes

According to the Center for Disease Control “From 1980 to 2005, the crude incidence of diagnosed diabetes increased 124% from 3.3 per 1000 to 7.4 per 1000. Similarly, the age-adjusted incidence increased 114%, suggesting that the majority of the change was not due to the aging of the population.”  

Diabetes Increase Rate per 1000 – CDC 1980-2005