From Charles Hugh Smith, via James Kunstler’s blog:
“Everybody’s got an excuse in our current system, and perhaps that’s why it is morally and financially bankrupt. The U.S. (and certainly not Santa Monica) was not a Third World nation in 1952; people did not feel their healthcare was deficient or poor. There was simply no money to pursue marginal returns except perhaps for a few millionaires seeking exotic treatments. Fine, it’s their money; most died right along with the rest of us and at about the same lifespan.
As for “overall health” of the populace: what with the “diabesity” epidemic out of control due entirely to lifestyle changes, it’s hard to say we’ve gotten 50 times healthier as a result of our healthcare costs rising 50-fold.
When it comes right down to it, the current system is based on this premise: the average American is too dumb to figure out healthcare for themselves and so we need a gigantic structure of “experts” to figure out what should be done and what it should cost. It’s not even really “insurance” because everyone gets old, ill and then dies.
This has resulted in the most brutally inefficient and even cruel system possible, one in which the very elderly are milked for hundreds of thousands of dollars of “healthcare” in the last days or weeks of their lives while tens of millions get no care at all except at the emergency room. Since no one takes responsibility for their own health or healthcare costs, then people take poor care of themselves and thus many of our ills are self-inflicted. People save little to nothing for emergencies because they’ve learned to expect someone, somewhere, to pay for their healthcare. (It’s a “right.” Really? At whose expense? The Chinese who buy our debt?)
I know, I know–going to a market/cash system is “impossible.” But the irony is that’s where we’ll be in a few years, regardless of what anyone thinks or wants: “healthcare” in its present incarnation will bankrupt the nation just as surely as the sun rises.”
My Comment:
That’s been my opinion of American health care, for years. Despite all the rhetoric and the high technology and expensive medicine involved, it’s not “the best” in the world, by any means. For the amount of money spent, I have to believe it’s actually rather middling.
Why?
Because the whole thing is a racket between the insurance companies, the medical establishment (including the pharmaceutical companies), and the lawyers – in which the consumer of health (notice the peculiarity of making health a product you consume) is encouraged to go in for bigger and sloppier portions, which he doesn’t fully eat or throws away, while all around people starve in the gutters.
Hospital overbilling ($17 dollar cotton swabs, for example), unnecessary diagnostic tests, lack of preventive care, patients who abdicate all responsibility for their own health, control of the supply of doctors, the medical research boondoggle….
Take all this away. Pay in cash for what you want. It sounds radical…impossible.
But with no incentive to over-bill, doctors will lower costs dramatically.
What about poor people who can’t afford health care now? Lower costs should help them too.
But there are other things we can do to to make health care affordable.
Here are some:
1. Increase the supply of doctors by immigration and single licensing standards
2. Utilize/license alternative practitioners, instead of demonizing them
3. Allow non-generic drugs into the market-place
4. Encourage medical tourism and comparison-shopping across countries
5. Educate the public on nutrition and preventive health
6. Allow nurses and technicians to perform more procedures than they do now
7. Include nutrition as a required subject in high schools
Once anything is refered to as a system that means the statists and lawyers got their hands on it…
Education system, justice system and health care system. Is there a clothes system or yard maintenance system?
Beyond semantics, there is something important at play here–and its not confined to health care or education. Its about mass man and mobocracy and how its exploited.
I love your work but you know as well as I do that the solutions you suggest are well impractical and if implemented (some have actually) they would be done in an idiotic and destructive fashion.
P.S.—“everything is affordable its just depends on who is doing the affording”. Courtesy of me! This one liner honed over years of teaching the uneducable, I give to you freely!
Hi Robert –
Why do you think it’s impracticable?
Or destructive?
Destructive to whom?
I believe it would free up vast amounts of money…
But I am open to correction.
What is it about this that’s so impossible?
All ears,
L
Ohl, l, l.
But in reality–all of the things you list are already practiced in one form or another–great in concept but the ability to execute or derive the intentended benefit is plain.
Think of what has passed for nutrition education over the last few years.
The food pyramid promulgated the inetese consumption of simple carbs and sugars–all brought to you by USDA under guidance from Archer Daniels Midland. The nuturionists have for years been working on what turns out to be an incorrect paradign–low fat, high carbs and lo nation of type ii diabetics. Foreign Trained physicians are already brought in and they already constitute the majority of medical proactioners in rural areas, there are some quality problems but all in all they too want to make big bucks and now lobby for limits.
Lcencing alternative practioners well won;t work much beyond that for plain political economy reasons–big pharma and ama.
EDucate–realistically we have difficulty teaching people to read and write–do you really think the schools are up to an addition charge–perhaps focusing on literacy would lead to people making better decsions in all realms of their lives–say mortgages, or say democracy and tolerance.
As for nurses and technicians doing more procedures bar in mind many are trained now on-line or are brought in from overseas training with minimal oversight or review of training. I would not let them cut my nails–let alone say do a procedure.
Key is–once any sector is in political and regulatory capture nothing will bring it back.
Cheers,
R
You make good points…
But I don’t know that I am asking the government to do anything “more” in these areas –
I am suggesting they do less…
That is, stop brainwashing us with medical establishment propaganda…
…
and throw out the lobbies…
I think you are right–doing less could be a good thing. Admitting that some issues and or problems of humanity are either not problems or insoluable would probably be healthy.
I think you are on to someting bigger and it probably warrants some deep thinking and reflection. Lots of effort and words are expended out there in trying to solve various problems and to prop up extant systems. This may sound insenstive, but what of the benefits of letting the whole house of cards collapse? Can we keep up the untnable. Keeping the current government, approaches and regimes is like the metaphorical granny that the family keeps on life support expending vast resources financial and emotianal even though nature calls for her to leave the scene. Could be a western thing and deep fear of death and fundamental change. Mexican that I am, do believe that you have to live with death on your shoulder and you should not cry that something is over but rather rejoice that you experienced or were part of something. A good posting or book would be–how I stopped worrying and learned to love the collapse of the west. FRom ruins rise treasures, maybe not in a decade or a generation but consider how long the west wallowed in the dark ages to enable the enlightenment. As stupid as we become we may well need some wallowing to bring us closer to being awake. Just like the collapse of the USSR woke up the citizens (enlightenment need not be happy or pleasant) we (the U.S. and west) have an appointment with reality that may well prove beneficial to those around in 2200.
Best,
R
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Well –
Most people don’t like change.
I’m used to it…
Things become sharper and cleaner.
Bread tastes good when you’re poor and sleep comes easily to those work for their bread.
But there’s poverty and poverty…
Having just enough is one thing.
Grinding, hopeless misery is another..
and many people will fall into that if the system is allowed to collapse as it is..
Besides, it’s morally untenable because the people who’ll suffer the most from the collapse are sometimes the people least responsible for it..
Certain support systems have to be retained or phased out very gradually
Indeed you are correct. The problem is that with collapse morality has a limited place. Plus, sadly morality or “doing the right thing” or fairness is so frequently used as a stalking horse for fairly unwholesome and counterproductive tendencies–think of communism and its variants. Yes, misery for the poor and weak is a terrbile thing–but can it be avoided? ARe the current elites and systems of government indeed geared to the least among us? I fear we are in the U.S. comming to very dark times and unlike you are I–majority not well prepared materially or mentally for deep and wrenching change–not the change that was voted for! Not change you can belive in but change in reality that will be painfully and grudingly evident. I take no joy in this. Incidentally, the whole heatlh care thing is all very puzzling given the current economic situation and resistance of all voters. The free care for illegal aliens and being able to access all financial records of tax payers is very bizzare. Its a lot weirder and scarier out thate than I like to contemplate.
Sorry–am on a rant. Recent events are getting to me….
“single licensing standards”
I thought gov’t licensing creates a false sense of trust. Look at all the elderly who do whatever the doctor tells them to because the doctor is “certified and licensed”. Let private, non-gov’t licensing/certifications occur. That way, people will distrust their doctors and shop around for a good one.
“Include nutrition as a required subject in high schools”
This occurred in my gov’t school. It was considered to be in the top 10 of the 5 boroughs (NYC). People still smoked, drank, and did drugs. Why? They were trapped for 12 years inside indoctrination camps. If the gov’t schools were closed down, teens/parents have less excuses to drug themselves in order to help them forget 12 years of brainwashing. They will then have more incentives to study nutrition because they will discover they can teach themselves most of the time. They will also have more reason to live because they will see life is *not* one giant gov’t bureaucracy.
I agree with you on everything else.
I also recommend trying to find people (60+ yrs. old) who have experimented with Longevinex, Vitamin D3, hyaluronic acid, and Juvenon. I’ve seen ALL age-related conditions reversed or wiped out. Several have put off retirement because of the benefits of that cocktail.
I’d be curious to try that out.
I’ve never heard about it before.
Can you post more links – maybe a reliable place to buy something like that?
I’m always worried someone will rush off and dose themselves off the net with something they read on my site and have a bad time of it.
So my warning – YOU ARE ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING YOU DO AS A RESULT OF READING ANYTHING ON THIS SITE. NOTHING WRITTEN ON THIS SITE BY READERS IS IN ANYWAY VERIFIED OR ENDORSED BY ME
NOW you warn us? JK 😉
Lila, I agree with the above but would go a step further. The linkage of medical insurance to employment is because of the tax code. End it.
Abolish the legal monopoly of medical profession unions including the AMA. I have no problem with their accreditation program, but it shouldn’t be compulsory for medical schools and it shouldnt have control of admission issues.
Let everyone do what they think they are capable of doing and let everyone pay for it by whatever means they choose.
Very soon you would have standards for medical practices, drugs and treatments performed by private companies along the lines of ASME or UL and the states could decide whether to make conformance mandatory.
What then would the FDA do? Nothing. Abolish it.
I am for all those..
I don’t believe in federal regulation..
it becomes corrupted by the industry too easily and there’ not enough variation..
rather than thinking in terms of regulation we should think in terms of standards, I believe..close to what you’re saying
A lot of this info. I posted about vitamins came from LRC. So I guess my image of LRC contributors hanging around Auburn drinking martini’s and talking about the U.S.S.A. was wrong?
Seriously, here is some info. you can use for your elderly friends. I always paid attention to the dosages and I have not lost one single friend who has taken all of this advice.:
Osteo-arthritis
Hyaluronic acid works wonders. Buy it at Amazon.com. Read the reviews for “Source Naturals Hyaluronic Joint Complex” (~$30). I also posted a review there. You will know which one is mine. People also give it to their dogs. So it’s safe it enough for man and beast. Athletes can also take it if they stressed out their knees. For more info., google: sardi oral hyaluronic. It’s most common in post-menopausal women. Something to do with loss of estrogen. Don’t overdose on it, drink plenty of water throughout the day, and the pain should be totally gone in 2-3 weeks.
Rhumatoid Arthritis, Alzheimer’s, cancer
Check out Bill Sardi’s company. The guy at LRC that talks about vitamins and drug dealers (aka doctors): http://www.LongevinexAdvantage.com
(For adult males and non-menstruating women.)
All the claims are true. Basically, a red wine pill that outdoes all the others on the market. They have a bunch of studies posted there that you can verify.
3,000 mg of Omega-3 and 5,000 i.u. of Vitamin D3 also work for rheumatism.
Energy and anti-aging at the cellular level – http://www.Juvenon.com
However, you probably won’t notice the difference if you take it since you are young.
All these companies have been around for years. No one is suing them, but not enough people buy their products. Also, most of the people this benefits are not exactly the kind that would video record themselves and post it on YouTube or Justin.tv.
There is also another reason why you never heard of it. Look at CBS and ABC news. For some reason they have covered resveratrol (aka red-wine molecule). Every time they mention it, they assume it has to be made into a drug.
Also, Amazon.com is not the kind of company that goes around saying, “Look! All your osteo-arthritis pain will be gone if you take this hyaluronic acid product your doctor never told you about!”
Some of this info. has also been posted by Dr. Miller on LRC.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.lewrockwell.com+miller+vitamins
I’ve taken all of them except for Juvenon because I can’t afford it. A family friend was the one that took that. Around 70 years old. Doctor was waiting for her to die. She is out and about, can finally traveled, and danced on Mother’s Day for the first time in 5 years. She also took other vitamins. (Omega-3, Vit. D3, multi-vitamin, Longevinex, Vit. C, flaxseed meal, etc.) She finally visited Peru this summer because she no longer has health issues.
Disclaimer: As long as you don’t mix anything with drugs you should be fine. Take Longevinex after menopause. Menstrual bleeding is keeping you young compared to men by preventing iron and mineral overload. Some supplements require food, like Omega-3 fish oils and fat-soluble vitamins.
Don’t overdose on hyaluronic acid since it can lead to thick blood. The links I gave you have more info. about that. Also, sorry for this verbose post. All of this works for everyone who has taken it. It all resulted from my interest in mises.org. That led me to LRC. Which led me to answers as to why everyone around me (usually after menopause) was getting sick.
Here is another tip:
methyl-B12 and folic acid. Safe enough that doctors prescribe it to pregnant women. This works wonders for depression! You can buy it on Amazon.com. (B12 comes in 2 main forms when sold as a supplement. It should say methyl.) That info. came from Bill Sardi’s website a long time ago. However, the web is littered with stories of how those supplements got people off useless anti-depressants.
Also, check out Sardi’s book: http://www.thecancerbook.com. One of the best for the immune system, viruses, bacteria, and tumors. I know it all sounds incredible, but it is loaded with scientific citation. You can look up those studies online for the science. It’s also some good info. on how doctors and drug companies set up vitamin studies to fail. One trick is to use low dosages of vitamins and statistical massaging. This explains how Reader’s Digest and NY Times can get away linking beta carotene to cancer.
Millions of illegal immigrants broke the laws of a sovereign nation! We must go after the purveyors who attract these, poor uneducated people! To be honest I’m fed up with supporting any person, who crosses the border, stays on an expired tourist visa. The corporate world have for decades, dumped these people on the doorstep of Taxpayers. We, as Americans cannot even access, half the benefits that are handed to illegals on a free platter. Don’t let the fumblers in Washington weaken E-Verify–part of the SAVE ACT. Politicians must not dissolve such local police laws as 287(g) or severely cut back on lightening raids by ICE. As you read this commentary we have the US chamber of Commerce, ACLU, The Council of Foreign Relations and a whole retinue of business concerns, who don’t believe they should be dictated to–BY A LARGE SLICE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Our laws have been manipulated for the benefit of ruthless organizations, who runs on profiteering and corruption, with the big fat dollar bill. Alas, it has become–THEM–against us. YES! To a orderly points system for the ultra skilled immigrant, who does not feed at the public welfare trough? But–NO–to the poor, uneducated–who cannot support themselves or their larger families. We must build on the technological illegal worker extraction process called E-Verify. We must rigidly penalize all employers who refuse to follow immigration enforcement. There must be adequate funding to construct more deterrents in the SAVE ACT, to make it impossible for illegal labor to fraudulently bypass E-Verify. We can no longer afford to be a welfare country, for anybody who enters the United States.
The usual imbeciles in the Democratic leadership, Reid, Pelosi, Feinstein and most you can guess for yourself. Now if the Democratic health care package goes through–TAXPAYERS WE WILL STILL BE UNDERWRITING all the foreigners that businesses can use. There is a sordid conspiracy going on with a group called “IMMIGRATIONWORKSUSA” brought and paid for by corporate–CHEAP LABOR–executives.DON’T LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SUPPOSEDLY INSPIRE. This group wants the Free movement of foreign labor, across our border without any restrictions All the truth, without the lies at NUMBERSUSA. DO NOT STOP HARASSING THE LAWMAKERS, AS YOUR CALLS ARE REALLY WORKING. Contact your lawmaker TODAY! at 202-224-3121 INFORM ICE IF YOU KNOW OF A PARASITE BUSINESS, UTILIZING ILLEGAL LABOR.
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