Is The Doctor "In?"

Amazing that, in the friction over health care legislation, there is virtually no attention paid to the opportunity at hand to bring legislators to the table for debate on forming public guidelines and references for preventive health care. This should include the promotion of wholesome dietary habits, prevention of exposure to toxic environments, the avoidance of sedentary and inactive life styles as well as the publishing of scientifically based material involving habitual substance usage, over-indulgence and over-exposures. Along these lines educational efforts should be subsidized to start at elementary levels.

Born and raised in Germany during 1940 and 1950, I knew that socialized medicine was already a reality under Hitler and no German could imagine being without it. So in 1948, when the "Marshall-Plan" got fully under way, the system of general taxation for national health care service was a given and every German was covered. When you were ill, you'd get a slip from the local administration to show your eligibility, and you'd take it to your general practitioner or specialist to get treated. The visit and diagnostics were free. So were medicine and special equipment - only in rare cases, certain medicines required co-payment.

Now that doesn't mean that everyone was happy with the system. And the opposition came mostly from those people who practiced wholesome and healthy eating habits on their own, who took appropriate measures to keep from attracting illnesses in the first place, and who were concerned in providing and living in an environment that promotes general physical and mental well-being.

They grumbled because they had to pay taxes just like everyone else and they also knew that a good chunk of their paid tax money went to curing and floating folks who were engaged in virtually sabotaging their own health and sustainable existence on a daily basis. All they had to do was look around to see that many of their fellow citizens drank alcohol and smoked regularly, often in addition to the generally dismal dietary habits nationwide which included high consumption of animal protein and fats, carbohydrates and refined sugars. Circulatory problems, heart disease, stroke, liver failure and impaired digestion are only a few of the resulting, oftentimes long-term ailments. These problems can be a real drag on any comprehensive health care system and should undoubtedly be dealt with when it comes to addressing the issue of universal health care here in the US.

That the American diet is one of the worst in the world is probably most likely challenged by people who refuse to read statistics. Childhood obesity alone, linked to massive fast-food consumption, sets the stage for development of chronic illnesses that later require constant medical attention - having to be covered by the patient, by insurance or the taxpayer in one form or another. There's no countering the argument that we get the "global fat kid award". Add drinking and smoking (which includes now jogging in a polluted city), bouncing around in a wheeled tin box for at least an hour every day on your butt and sitting around in an office or a classroom for a few hours more can actually produce the desire for jogging in the city (where it's safe and you get a good whiff of CO2 along with other noxious gases). Add GMOs, hormones, residual pesticides in the food we consume, prolonged exposure to chemicals and toxic out-gassing from a wide variety of industrial plastic products used in vehicles, buildings and construction (esp. pre-manufactured homes), offices and other work environments. Add prolonged human exposure to electromagnetic fields - a concern now under scientific scrutiny and seen by many (esp. in Europe) as a serious health hazard. Many people in the US are working daily in environments that are inundated with electromagnetism.

If a government is to take on any protective role for its citizenry, it primarily has to deliver assurance of reasonable access to basic, uncontaminated subsistence needs: water - food - shelter - health - safety. And for those engaged in these fields as providers and entrepreneurs, a responsive and responsible government must have the power to prevent them from taking advantage of the situation, to control it, to practice unfair and extensive price controls - especially in the medical fields where patients often have the misfortune of an illness or injury befalling them without their own fault. To be fair, there are checks already in place to prevent this from happening here, but it's designed to catch the ones who would normally fall through the cracks due to lack of funds - while a middle-class person with a little savings may not fare so well.

The role of the government as the good health guardian of the nation is probably as elusive as the notion that the providers should adopt a moral stance for the betterment of the country and only charge what is fair. Stockholders in Pharmaco would be outraged and would immediately find more lucrative ventures to invest in. Many believe that taking care of one's physical and mental well being is strictly a personal affair and one's failure to do so should not result in them becoming a burden on their fellow man. So - how do you legislate humanity and compassion, love and kindness? - You can't. Unless operating on a high level of social integrity with the willingness to accept the oversight of existing social institutions, handling a vital part of the common welfare such as national health can never be successfully extended to private, for profit enterprise, without manipulation getting into the process.

Ignorance within a large segment of the public as to what constitutes a healthy lifestyle and how to prevent sickness, disease and injury can be a vexing problem and governmental departments and agencies find themselves at a loss on how to create legislation dealing with self-destructive tendencies, whether intentional or due to lack of knowledge. In today's world educational approaches in the field of health maintenance are bountiful and offer a variety of considerations and solutions that, unfortunately, are often not all in agreement with each other. Alone, diversity in the genetics of individuals often prevents folks from responding to identical treatments in the same way, further complicating matters. Yet, if the government is going to have any hand in assuring fair and proper treatment of patients enrolled in a governmental, privatized or partially privatized health system, there must somehow be a distinction be made between those patients who require medical treatment due to reasonable circumstances beyond their control and those who need help because of their own neglect, carelessness, substance abuse and unwillingness to make recommended, appropriate adjustments. Steering toward affording all citizens, a free, annual physical exam, including the physician's remedial recommendations could become the cornerstone for a fair approach to good, national health maintenance. (The Veteran's Administration actually offers a workable and time-tested model to go by).

Although this approach requires close co-operation between the government, health care providers and patients, it nevertheless appears to be the only way to come close in eliminating abuse of a system into which everyone is required to be enrolled. Fairness should also include incentives for those who practice and promote good health for themselves and their families and rarely make use of the mandated insurance - similar to rewards for accident-free driving.

Non-binding dissemination of information and referencing of new findings and applications in medical practices here and in the rest of the world could be added to the services the government could provide its citizens free of charge, thus helping folks in raising their consciousness in personal health practices and avoidance of habits known to be dangerous, debilitating and costly.

Peter Lohmann
ecoinnova@hotmail.com
copyright2010 Peter Lohmann
OK to desseminate in its entirety