Could We Actually Have TOO MUCH Health Care?

I recently read an article that claimed, “…the major problem associated with American healthcare has been a lack of access to it.” That’s clearly the basis from which our government has seen fit to approve and promote the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare). Because we are consuming ever increasing amounts of health related service our health care invoices continue to climb at an alarming rate. The ACA is a reasonable approach if increased health services are necessary and American citizens do not have equal access to it. Be clear that the ACA is about how we as a country will pay for the escalating costs of providing health services that are grounded in a belief that growing numbers of us are sick and in need of medical care.

Not too many years ago we went to see a doctor if we had a problem with our health. Today, healthy people visit the doctor on a regular basis and discover that they really aren’t as healthy as they had thought. This number is creeping up or that blood value is slightly abnormal. Forget the fact that blood levels and numbers vary throughout the day, the discoveries need treatment, starting immediately and probably continuing for the rest of our life. The prescribed treatments often cause symptoms we don’t like - side effects. For them, there are other treatments; often, more drugs.

We believe that every symptom or situation can be relieved by a drug or medical procedure. Modern medicine seems to be always on the lookout for the magic bullets – the ones that will eliminate our problems. While there is certainly “poison in every potion”, it is highly unlikely that there is a “pill for every ill”. Except

for anti-infectives, there is not a single drug that cures anything. At best, our drug cabinets only manage illness. Still, the search goes on and most of us believe that the next big breakthrough is just around the corner. And, we (individually or through the government) contribute to this program or that group to support their efforts in finding the cures we want.

The ACA is in the news and it calls our attention to the fact that we’re spending ourselves to death and a lot of it is being funneled to a dysfunctional system of health delivery. It is a mess from top to bottom and as a country we seem incapable of solving the problems. WE try, but every attempt seems to only add more costs while it further degrades our overall health. Look at any list conditions and you can see that the United States is rarely at the top when it comes to treatment, prevention, or safety. For all we spend, failures are common.

We find ourselves in this kind of a mess because we have learned to look outside ourselves for advice. We turn to doctors, hospitals, and even the government to take charge of our lives and keep us going. We take their prescriptions and submit to the surgeries with little reflection. We believe deeply that our lives are best handled by other people. We trust them over ourselves.

This is the season for making resolutions. Some of us decide to go to the gym, to stop smoking, to do any number of things that seem appropriate for the New Year. Yet, how many of us look deep into our lives and decide that our health depends only on us, that the doctors, insurance companies, laboratories, and drug makers are only out there to meet our specific needs? While there is nothing wrong with profit, there is something dramatically wrong when the desire for it trumps our need to have a healthy body that wards off disease, heals itself, and allows us to be happy.

The details about health are many and often confusing. At the root, however, is one basic decision; whether we want to live a healthy lifestyle or plod along doing what we’re told by people and companies who have ulterior motives for recommending their products and services.

Those who decide that their health is a right - and they are personally responsible - will face 2014 and beyond with the personal power to be healthy – and happy. I pray that masses of Americans will wake up to the problems and understand that the solutions are in their personal grasp, once that first decision to be healthy is made. The current system demands we have access to the health system. A superior alternative is for each of us to come to that place where we don’t need all the available services.