.jpg)
There are a pair of trends that Christians need to watch and understand if they are to understand what is coming down the road in “health care.” There is a growing trend to push “preventative care,” although the preventative care being pushed might not actually improve anything. For instance, I’ve long been skeptical of claims that chlorestoral is related to heart disease, especially given the horrendous side-effects of the drugs used to treat high chlorestoral. When I was 20 years old, under the enforced diet of the US Air Force’s Basic Training, and 120 pounds, my chlorestoral was “high.” Today, a “bit” heavier, and a “bit” older, my doctor still tells me my chlorestoral is “high,” at the same level it was all those years ago. My family has a long history of “high chlorestoral,” and yet no history of heart disease of any sort. So my personal experience with chlorestoral makes me suspicious.
It turns out “high chlorestoral” isn’t the only snake oil being peddled by “modern medicine.” Junkfoodscience, one of my favorite blogs, reviews a couple of interesting recent studies (Even obesity paradoxes can’t ‘excuse’ fatness). The result of these studies is obesity doesn’t have the statistical impact on life expetency that many people, including doctors, think it does. Carrying a few extra pounds when you’re older actually improves your chances of a longer life, according to the most recent research.
Now, lets look at the next trend, the push for government run healthcare. The first facet of government run health care we all know: the total lack of any real care under such a system. We only need to look at the results of government run health care in Massachusetts, as reported by Junkfoodscience, for instance, to understand the problem. Or perhaps we need to consider the case of the man who pulled out 13 of his own teeth in Britain because he couldn’t get in to see a dentist under their state run health program. This video is also helpful in visualizing the problem.
Or take a look at the reasoning behind Walmart’s support of government run health care—essentially so they can offload their cost to the government, hiding part of the cost of doing business. Of course, in a sense, this entire game is the fault of the government in the first place, because during the first socialist burst (otherwise known as the “New Deal”), the US Government made health care a part of employment through taxes. Just another example of the government stepping in to “solve” a problem it originally created, counting on our forgetting a few facts because they mishandle the teaching of history through their control of the educational system.
There is a second problem in government run healthcare that few people talk about, though. The bottom line problem is illustrated in this chart.
(Click on the image above for a full version of the chart)
This chart represents government control. Perhaps all this new government control is the reason the Democratic leadership doesn’t want anyone to actually read the healthcare bill before it’s passed. But whenever you see government control on this scale, you have to ask—what will all this control be used for? Well, if you dig deep enough, you’ll find the current plan is to pay for all these new healthcare services by “pushing” preventative care. “Pushing” almost always starts out as “we’d really like you to do this,” and is quickly followed by “you must do this in order to get coverage or care.”
And now we return to the first theme. Does any of this “preventative care,” like taking chlorestoral medicine, or forcing people to starve to be skinny, really help? Is it based on real science, or is it based on snake oil and mirrors? And what will this “preventative care” include? Since some folks think “fundamentalist religious belief” is a “mental problem,” and owning guns increases your chances of being killed by someone using a gun, doesn’t that imply that forcing you to undergo “therapy” to “get rid of your fundamentalist Christian beliefs,” and forcing you to sell your guns are all valid targets under “preventative care?”
Related posts:
[...] original here: Health and Health Care [...]
Only God knows what these people will end up trying. I am quite sure that they don’t know; they are making it up as they go. The only thing of which I am certain is that no matter how manifest their failures, they will never concede that their ideas are flawed. Failure will be put down to insufficient control or spending, and the push will be on for ever-greater control and spending. The same thing is happening now with regards to the so-called “stimulus.” It is pretty obviously not working, so you are already hearing calls for a second “stimulus.” But concede that the idea behind the stimulus package is flawed? Never.
In general, I would certainly agree with you that most health risks are overblown–most reasonably active people can carry a few extra pounds and it doesn’t seem to hurt them, for example. On the other hand, being as heavily involved with medical equipment as I am (I deliver and install it for a living), it is very hard not to notice that the overwhelming majority of the people to whom I deliver have certain things in common. First, most of them are more than a little overweight. We are not talking about carrying an extra fifteen pounds here. Quite a lot of them are morbidly obese. Second, almost without exception, they are physically weak; you can tell that they haven’t been in the habit of getting any exercise for a long, long time. Third, quite a lot of them either were, or remain, cigarette smokers. Allow yourself to match this description long enough, and I can’t help but think that your odds of achieving my typical patient profile–COPD and diabetes–are significantly heightened.
I’ll go to my grave convinced that an occasional cigar won’t hurt most people, nor will a few extra pounds, nor will a slab of ribs from my backyard smoker, nor will a bottle of beer or a shot of Jameson’s. On the other hand, being substantially overweight and totally inactive, coupled with two packs a day–yeah, I’m pretty much convinced that’ll kill ya. Or at least make you wish you were dead.
Which still doesn’t justify government getting involved. Five years into this business, and I have yet to see ONE “plan of care” that includes as a goal “patient needs to lose 150 pounds and quit smoking.” Instead of doing THAT, the case managers just start ordering “bariatric” equipment (equipment rated for the stunningly heavy) at public expense.
I would completely agree that there is a point of moderation–and that moderation is the point, in the end. Too much weight is bad, and being skinny by starvation (or taking drugs to be skinny) is bad. Recognizing that different people have different “normal” weights would probably go a long way towards resolving a lot of the problem we have in our concepts of “fat.” We live in an often one sided world–sadly, we can’t seem to find the middle of the road any longer.
Russ