On Preventive Health Care

This week the Supreme Court will decide whether or not the federal government can force individuals to purchase health insurance.  How in the world did we get to this point?

There was a time in this country when health insurance didn’t even exist.  Now many Americans believe it's a “human right” to have.  But that’s a topic for another discussion.

So let’s talk about health insurance.  Prior to the 1920s, people were largely treated in the home for illness or injury—house call, anyone?  Health care was more or less affordable for the average person.  Sometimes you could even pay the doctor with a chicken or two.  But with the rise of medical technology also came the rise in medical costs.  Before we knew it, the cost of getting sick became a real problem.  But even up to the 1970s, a doctor visit was about $20, and most families – even financially disadvantaged ones – could afford a doctor visit when they or their child got sick.  As I recall, my first childbirth (1975) cost a total of about $650— a sum that included both the doctor’s fee and the three-day hospital stay.   Back then, the big concern was having hospital or surgical insurance--what we refer to these days as "catastrophic" insurance.  And about 65% of people under 65 had some combination of hospital/surgical insurance as early as the 1950s.

It was during the 1940s and 50s that employers started offering health benefits to attract workers when government war-time wage freezes prevented employers from negotiating on wage.

Then in 1965, the government got involved in the health insurance game with Medicare and Medicaid and has continued to expand its involvement in one way or another through every administration - Democrat or Republican - culminating in the notorious "Obamacare" we have today.  That aside, Health Insurance, for better or worse, is the commodity that dictates what care Americans will get...unless, of course, they are wealthy enough to pay cash for the care they want.

Have you ever wondered WHY health care ballooned into such an expensive industry?  Americans are getting sicker by the year, and medical care is getting more and more costly by the year.  Not a good combination.  It's no wonder we panic about health insurance.  Without it, who can afford to get sick?

Which brings me to my next point:  Nobody.

Enter "Preventive Care."  Preventive Care is the mantra of the 21st century.  But what exactly is it?  According to the insurance companies, Preventive Care means going to the doctor when you're not sick in the hope that your doctor will be able to catch early warning signs of major illness and stave it off before it gets too expensive.  And to help motivate us to use this kind of care, insurance companies, by and large, offer it for free.  Your annual physical exam, well-baby visits, prenatal visits ... all free.  No co-pay, no co-insurance-- 100% covered.  What do they do in these visits?  Any number of standard screenings that may include blood tests and EKGs.  If you're a woman, you're going to get a free mammogram.  You might get a free colonoscopy if you're older.  You'll probably get immunizations for free if you're a child.

There are a couple of problems with all this free stuff.  First of all, it's not free.  Maybe you don't have to pay for it at the doctor's office, but you will pay for in your premiums, which continue to creep up and up every year.  And on the happy chance your employer soaks up the whole premium on your behalf as part of your employee benefit package, your employer pays the premium increase.  And believe me, having a little insight into this in my day job, the employer rate increases anywhere from ten to twenty percent every single year.  In case the concept is still flying over your head, this usually means that the raise in actual wages you might have received this year is instead going to your insurance company to pay the increase in premiums for your health insurance so you (and all the other people in your plan) can go to the doctor when you're not sick.

The second problem is that routine screenings, which may make you feel safe (when they come back negative anyway), don’t always catch what they’re meant to catch before the problem becomes expensive.  Or, they “catch” something that may NOT be a real problem, and result in additional, and sometimes traumatic (and expensive) procedures that aren’t really necessary.  Or, worse yet, an overuse of diagnostic tests such as mammograms or CT scans may actually be contributing to the development of cancer later in life.

Has health insurance changed our understanding of health?  Americans are sicker now than they've ever been-- in spite of the advancements in medical care.  Do we put so much faith in the medical industry, the drug industry, and the health insurance industry to cure us when we get sick that we no longer make an effort to be well?

What if the health insurance industry went away and you were once again responsible for your own well-being?  Would you do anything differently?  Would you change the way you eat?  Would you exercise more?  Would you avoid unhealthy activities?  This is the essence of preventive health care.

Real healthiness can still be had in America.  When the renowned dentist, Dr. Weston Price, was traveling the world doing his research on physical degeneration, he made a causative link to nutrition.  He studied the primitive diets of people all around the world on five different continents, living near oceans, in mountains and in deserts.  In every case, those primitive diets promoted health, strength, and immunity from disease.  What did they have in common?  They were all high in body-building nutrients-- particularly calcium, phosphorus, and fat-soluble vitamins.  In every case, people in the same group that left the primitive diet and adopted the western diet (consisting primarily of processed foods, sugar, and white flour) developed physical and dental deformities and succumbed to disease within a single generation.  He wisely said:

     “We cannot distort and rob the foods without serious injury.  Nature has put these foods up in packages containing the combinations of minerals and other factors that are essential for nourishing the various organs. … Our modern process of robbing the natural foods for convenience or gain completely thwarts Nature’s inviolable program.”

We are what we eat, plain and simple.  The best prevention is a healthy diet of whole foods, minimally processed, high in minerals and fat-soluble factors.  Those fat-soluble “factors” are found only in sea foods, organs of animals (naturally raised), or dairy products from animals raised on green grass.  (Sorry, but you won't find them in a vegan diet.)  Nature’s laws are ignored at our detriment. 

Mandatory health insurance?  I hope not.  Government can’t make us healthy by mandating health insurance or by taxing sugary drinks, or by prescribing a government diet.  As Dr. Price so aptly put it, “Life in all its fullness is this:  Mother Nature Obeyed.”