Creating A Sane, Positive Health Care System

In the USA there is ongoing debate about reforming health care and health insurance. Costs for health care have risen dramatically while the health of the population has in many ways deteriorated. Americans would be wise to question many basic assumptions about health insurance and health care.

There really ISN'T any health insurance being offered, but rather TREATMENT insurance. If you can get diagnosed with some type of disorder or illness your policy will ensure you get some form of treatment, in a majority of cases the insurance company gets to decide what type of treatment you can receive. Those who develop and promote treatment products and services will naturally seek to have insurance companies cover their treatment and NOT COVER other types of treatment. Furthermore, the cost of care is compounded by the expenses and profit margin of insurance companies. Insurance is offered as a product that must reap profits for the company providing it. Since Insurance companies have many costs for their employees, advertising, government fees, and more, that cost is added to the cost of health care if insurance is being used to manage and guarantee care.

If insurance were not part of this system then you would only be paying health care providers for their services and not paying for insurance companies to cover their costs and maintain profitability. Even if you personally are not supporting the insurance company SOMEONE ELSE is - whether it's your employer or taxpayers. If insurance didn't manage your care then you could see any practitioner and pay for whatever services you and your provider believe will best support your health. This would allow a free marketplace of potentially beneficial therapies instead of a system where pharmaceutical monopolies dominate due to their ability to influence government and insurance organizations.

Insurance fraud is currently common, but would be eliminated if patients directly purchased health services and providers had the opportunity to offer reduced fee or pro bono services to those who can't afford care expenses. Insurance would then be a matter of social compassion and ethics rather than a government bureaucracy or profit-motivated business. If the health care system were allowed to focus more on alternative & holistic medicine the public would become healthier and physicians would have more time to donate to treat impoverished patients.

Health care reform can only genuinely occur if the whole nature of the system is reformed and transformed. The current system is not designed to create a healthy population, even though most care providers want to help people. A Universal Health Care program provided by the government is a common suggestion, but that just centralizes and unifies the current flaws of health care into a single bureaucracy. Only when promoting optimal health and the best therapeutic care is the NUMBER ONE value and priority can health care best serve the public. Once money is involved in the equation the values and priorities get distorted.

Thus, we must actually look beyond the topic of health care to see the economic structure of society and how that engenders the dysfunctions that we experience. For an interesting examination of that issue I encourage readers to watch the Zeitgesit Movie and it's sequel Zeitgeist Addendum, at www.zeitgeistmovie.com