Bowl of Serial

I’ve been thinking about how or if universal health care could work lately. I have become increasingly more concerned about the cost of the health care program after thinking about what we have done with the bailout plans and how they have panned out so far. It worries me that we are attempting to put an economic band-aid on an issue that isn’t purely economic in nature. I have come to the conclusion that we may not need universal health care as much as we need insurance companies not being pressured to increase profits, among other things.

The main problem, in my opinion, with the health insurance industry is the capitalistic nature of it. The drive for ever higher profits is something that should not be encouraged in what should be a humanistic endeavor. I would like to see the results that not pressuring the industry into profitability would yield, as I think that this pressure has been as influential in the amount being paid out or denied as the trend of our health has been in decline and the costs to stay or become healthy has increased. It is only natural that the profits of insurance companies would dip and rise as the public’s health improves or declines. If insurance companies are to do their job competently, it is the government’s job to ensure that their obligation to the stockholders comes second to the infinitely more important job of ensuring that people receive the coverage they are entitled to and paying for in the first place. Stockholders should understand that a properly run insurance company is going to have profits that correlate to it’s clients’ health and that should turn the motivation, in terms of increasing profits, from denying legitimate claims to improving public health.

With that, I’m quite concerned about hearing that the pharmaceutical companies will be in the fold when concocting this plan. I don’t think the pharmaceuticals should be given much say in this, as recent trends have shown that this type of involvement from any one industry has not benefitted the middle or poor classes. A significant piece of the problem is the fact that we are so heavily dependent on pharmaceuticals that eventually, our ailments will be immune to them. This fact has been known since the 1940’s, and currently we have been conditioned to accept the regimental program of at least 3 different prescriptions for the symptoms of the initial sickness and the various side-effects of the different prescriptions that may follow; making the inevitable immunity to drugs come to fruition much faster. It is ridiculous and impractical for people to be forced to spend all their money on these drugs when more and more research is showing that eating healthy, preferably organic, foods reduces the likelihood of most of our ailments as well as the capacity to fight ones we have prescription drugs for. The fact that the FDA allows companies to put out drugs that potentially are fatal is preposterous. Now that they are running ads for these drugs, essentially advocating self-diagnosis (tell your doctor about [insert name of drug here]…), and have converted doctors into drug pushers; the companies are taking the risk of health care out of the hands of the doctors or the pharmaceutical companies and into the hands of  the ordinary citizen, as well as the legal responsibility.

A good example for the complete lack of responsibility doctors or pharmaceuticals are taking for the deaths of people is the Columbine shooting. Eric Harris was found to have the anti-depressant Luvox in his system, which is similar to Zoloft and Xanax in it’s effects. The maker of Luvox was sued by one of the survivors, who claimed that the side-effects (violent and suicidal behavior, among others) contributed to the incident. A lot of the blame went to the parents, Marilyn Manson, and video games. Not a whole lot of attention was given to pharmaceutical drugs, at least at the time. Luvox is still on the market, as is Xanax and Zoloft and several other SSRI medications (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), despite the repeatedly demonstrated proof that these drugs are a safety hazard to the user and people around the user. This sort of reaction to a drug was falsely accused of marijuana in the 20’s against black people and it got banned, but now that we’re seeing this same thing in reality, it has yet to be conceived that it should be considered for prohibition. The fact that Manny Ramirez’s prescriber of performance enhancing drugs is being sought after by the FBI and the doctor who prescribed Eric Harris Luvox has not even be questioned (despite being the one who gave him the drugs, which is connected to violent and suicidal behavior – both of which the incident demonstrated) strikes me as a double standard. Consider the following: Steroids and anti-depressants are both prescription-only. Occasionally, steroids contribute to a condition known as “‘roid rage” while anti-depressants are known to contribute to violent and sucidal behavior as well. The difference is that one is illegal to possess without a medical need and the other is not (though, not that many people are going to mess around with anti-depressants in the first place, though there is evidence of misuse through the medical community). The difference is that the anti-depressants are widely administered to people for a variety of things and steroids have a specific purpose.

Our industrialized food supply has been known to make us unhealthy for years and if it weren’t for the high cost of vegetables, especially for organics, then I’m sure a sizeable percentage of people would change some, if not all, of their eating habits toward a more healthy lifestyle. It’s not a coincidence that the people with the worst health are generally the poorest people, as the “trend” of eating healthy has pushed the cost of vegetables up quite a bit and forces people with lower incomes to sacrifice nutrition for savings (scarcity in action). The opportunity cost that piles up from continuously choosing savings over nutrition takes a toll on the health of the family as the malnutrition adds up and increases the rates of obesity, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, or dental problems among other food-related issues.

When these people go to the doctor (or worse, the hospital), often enough they are not insured and are forced to pay out of pocket and are thrust into debt. What’s worse now is that the current generation of kids are growing up with the wonderful preconditions of obesity and high cholesterol. These kids will end up with terrible health benefits, if they can afford anything at all; and, if they choose to pay for something decent, they will be paying dearly for these preexisting conditions. 800 billion dollars is not going to fix childhood obesity or any of the other reasons we are sick.

So sure, universal health care can cover every person in America, but does that necessarily take steps to improve our health? No. We need to come up with better ways to stay healthy than by staving off the symptoms and continuing the habits that got us sick in the first place.

Related posts:

• A Guide to Better Health
• Kanye West Interupts Obama’s Health Care Speech
• Ideas for economic stimulus
• Advertisers Dump Glenn Beck for Ridiculous Obama Racism Allegations
• Gadgets:Bake a Refreshing Personal Pizza While Driving to Work with a Porta Pizza Oven