Health Care and Legislative Accountability

The main problem with Nationalized Health Care, as I see it, is surrendering ourselves to government bureaucracy and permitting our legislative representatives to increase spending, along with the country's deficit and taxation. A good friend of mine, a hard-working physician with a lot of integrity, made of offhand remark that "some hospital bureaucrats get paid a lot to sit around." Do we want to layer government bureaucracy on top of that?

What is "bureaucracy"? Looking it up in Webster's Dictionary I found this definition: "the administration of government through departments and subdivisions managed by sets of officials following inflexible routine." Departments and subdivisions? How many? Officials? Does that sound like policing? What do these officials know about medicine or patient care? Are they just following a rule book? Who specificall wrote the rules for every body?

The last two words of the definition give me great pause. Inflexible Routine. Should medical decisions and medical care be inflexible? Is medicine routine? Every medical case is unique by virtue of the individual treatment of an individual person. As individuals, we choose our physicians (unless we find ourselves in the emergency room), and then we make choices based on the acting physician's recomendations, second opinions, our own research into proposed treatments and alternatives, and on experiences shared by family and friends.

Rather than add adminstrative costs and inflexibility, might we identify ways to reduce medical costs and perhaps add competitive choice through the private sector and our local non-profits by employing creativity, trust, and integrity.

Why do health insurance premiums increase by double-digit factors every year? Is it the cost of increasing compliance orders? Is it rampant lawsuits and the resultant cost of malpractice insurance? Is it the cost of patents granted to "obvious" formulations or the exorbinant costs of those obvious-patent-protected products themselves? Is it the cost of growing obesity in our population? Is it because new medical practices that save our lives also place a greater number of us in a costly disabled state? And if this is so, who should pay for the increased cost of disabilty? The taxpayers?

There are too many questions that go unanswered by the representatives who were elected to work for our best interests. The Health Care Reform Bill is written in a legal language that is indecipherable, and doesn't appear to address the most critical issue - cost. Is it too much to ask for clarity and accountability? Is it too much to ask our Congressman and Senators to spend our money as if it were coming out of their own pockets?

America's Affordable Health Choices Act???

HR3200 - "America's Affordable Health Choices Act." I have to laugh. Another misleading bill title. I went to check it out today at www.thomas.gov - mindblowing! I clicked on a random Section - 113. Written in legaleese, although I doubt THEY can understand it all - hundreds of pages of indecipherable text written like an endless labrynth. Is the joke on us? Can we ask that it be written in plain English, so that WE can understand the laws congress is proposing? Dear reader, how would you suggest WE divide these sections up among us to see if we can collaborate and figure it all out before it gets passed? This is scandalous!

Combatting Swine Flu

I find this swine flu alarm disconcerting. Media has a way of building up the "fear factor," which doesn't help matters. Furthermore, I don't trust vaccines, given things I've read about adverse effects. And, in fact, if it becomes law that children are required to have the vaccine in order to attend school, I think I'll go back to basics and home school my kids. I plan on investigating echinacea as an alternative to a swine vaccine and stick to hand washing and herbal disinfectants. Just using my common sense.

A Hard Look at Health Insurance

For the past year, I've been working as an agent/broker trying to help people identify affordable health insurance options (like high deductible health plans - HDHP). Having been self-employed for years, my husband and I have been responsible for purchasing our own. We've been watching the premiums escalate and compound over these years to unaffordable levels, while we have maintained a healthy lifestyle of regular exercise, sensible eating, and adequate sleep. I wish we'd been putting that $10,000+ per year into a money market account instead dishing it over to Blue Cross, never to be seen again.

The government's Universal Health plan will only compound matters further, while placing an even greater burden on hard-working individuals and employers. Washington's plan will not reduce the "real cost of services," which is the core issue. Their plan will not improve the quality of services, but will cause a further deterioration by placing more pressure on the existing system, while taxing the hell out of us.

The causes of illness - stress, obesity, junk food, substance abuse - need to be addressed through wellness education programs that impart the wisdom of nutrition, exercise, self-discipline, interpersonal support, and inspiration. Sometimes I'll meet someone to discuss health insurance, look at them and think, "Wow, you don't need health insurance, you need to start taking better care of yourself." I'd love to know people's thoughts on wellness.

Here's a wellness word I made up - farmaceutables - would love to hear your definition. I'll share mine at a later time.