Today I want to blog starting a conversation about the healthcare debate. Not the debate about whether we should have a single-payer healthcare system in place of private insurance. Not the debate about whether compelling individuals to purchase private health insurance is constitutional or not (it appears the SCOTUS will be making that determination for us soon enough). Not the debate about what the various Medicare options should cover, or whether access to affordable (or free) healthcare is a basic human right as suggested by some.
No, the conversation I wish to begin is about our understanding, our definition, of health and our understanding of healthcare. It is often critiqued that in the US we don’t have a healthcare system, but rather something like a sickness treatment system, or even a death prevention system. What I take these criticisms to mean is that we have an industry and infrastructure better adapted to treat injuries than develop injury prevention. A healthcare paradigm better equipped to “treat” diabetes and the symptoms of obesity than cure and prevent it in the first place. And industry quick to adopt more pain killers, cholesterol pills and injections of all kinds, but very slow and wary of considering non-pharmaceutical approaches, alternative medicine, preventative care, and the simple power of consuming real, healthy, whole food in place manufactured healthy and food-like products.
The root (or at least a root) of this paradigm has historically been money. And I don’t just mean money within the industry: we’re talking the broader economy here. And money continues to be a driving factor. However, on top of that is now a population conditioned or accustomed to thinking about health in this way, making their messaging all that more effective and acceptable.
When my back aches, I take a pain killer (consider the alternatives). When my stomach hurts I take some pink stuff. When my cholesterol is out of whack I take a combination cholesterol absorption inhibitors and statin. When I reach clinical obesity I reach for an ephedrine, or consider surgery. When I become diabetic, I start daily injections.
I hope you get the picture: a medical solution to every health issue, rather than a healthcare and wellness focused approach to problems, and a healthy lifestyle to prevent as many of them as possible in the first place.
This is not good.
Comments welcome.
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