Recently, I went to the drugstore to fill a prescription. Instead, I left with a costly lesson in health care economics.
At the checkout, I was surprised when the clerk billed me for $100 instead of my usual small co-payment. It was only then that I realized my doctor had traded me up to a costly branded migraine drug, even though the old drug had worked just fine. And I had allowed it.
As a conversation about health care reform intensifies in Washington, much of the focus is on the role the government and insurance companies will play in a revamped health system. But surprisingly little attention has been paid to the role that patients and their doctors have played in shaping the way medical care is delivered.
Ultimately, for any reform to work, patients will have to change their behavior. Of course, everyone should continue to demand the best possible care. But we will have to accept that �best� doesn�t always mean the newest drug or the latest treatment. The looming question is whether patients are ready to embrace the realities of reform.
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Chatted with a German friend last week, what she told me about German health industry was astonishing. In the last two years, their new policies favored the insurance industry more and more, which made it quite hard for the doctors. Many of them have been going abroad to work, some private clinics were shut down. Health business has become a poor business lately there.
You know what? If the clerk billed me $100, you can bet they would have been picking up the phone, and calling my physician to have my normal Rx filled! Why are consumers afraid to speak up, and question their doctors?
Chatted with a German friend last week, what she told me about German health industry was astonishing. In the last two years, their new policies favored the insurance industry more and more, which made it quite hard for the doctors. Many of them have been going abroad to work, some private clinics were shut down. Health business has become a poor business lately there.
Chatted with a German friend last week, what she told me about German health industry was astonishing. In the last two years, their new policies favored the insurance industry more and more, which made it quite hard for the doctors. Many of them have been going abroad to work, some private clinics were shut down. Health business has become a poor business lately there.
Things are only going to get worse.
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Let Food Be Your Medicine And Medicine Be Your Food.(Hippocrates)
Sounds like your doctor doesnt have your best interests at heart. I just found out today myself that my medication has a generic version! I've been waiting 11 years for one, and nobody said a word, not the doctors, pharmacists, insurance company, nobody! I had to take a print out from the F.D.A. to my pharmacy to show them and have them start ordering my script in a generic form. Which will save me $600 per year. I swear human beings would rather screw each over for the all mighty dollar, instead of helping each other out. Makes me want to give up on everything sometimes. ;-(
You know what? If the clerk billed me $100, you can bet they would have been picking up the phone, and calling my physician to have my normal Rx filled! Why are consumers afraid to speak up, and question their doctors?
I wish I could answer that. It's like the people who keep getting chemotherapy over and over again, even as they get sicker. They're dieing, and they know it; but they don't say anything. I don't know when trust of doctors transformed into some sort of hero worship.
Real health care reform has to come from the individual, not government or the insurance companies. People need to start taking responsibility for their own health, and stop relying on others to do it for them. When American's really embrace this, we wont need Big Pharma and big insurance companies, for the most part. Only emergency medicine will remain (car accidents, etc).
Yup, it's a big rip off. Guess we should question our Docs anytime we
are given a new or renewal on any prescription these days. Better Safe
than Sorry!
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May you always have..Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends that Care!
The problem with medicine is regular allopathic medicine is standardized world wide (just like sushi and nice beer, no cheap places anywhere on the planet). Most of the drugs are the same and with the insurance companies and standardization of procedures, docs are not allowed (for fear of lawsuits) to try different, non drug treatments. It will be the same everywhere pretty soon. Baltimore or bangalore or bangkok. It will all be the same and expensive.
As the board screw up, I was out of work in 04 for a couple months and was thinking about going to costa rica to teach school (and party). A job popped up which I had to take in pennsylvania, but I was on a costa rican message board and one guy was talking about a healer there and he has seen first handed this guy treat diabetics with herbs successfuly as well as other disorders. This phenomena will be destroyed in the future. There was some village in a s american rainforest that use to harvest all sorts of plants for treating people. Some drug company went in and gave them a ton of money to buy all their fields. Even though I am a conservative, this is capitalism run amuk.
I have a brother who lives in Germany and who is a natural health care practicioner. The German gov't has , like the American gov't favored the drug producers and gone after many of the natural practicioners. My brother was sued thousands of euros in an attempt to shut him down.
We don't have a health care industry in this country outside of natural practicioners. We have a "sick care" industry where the drug companies are racking in billions while they are slowly killing those who are "users". Not ony so but the insurance companies are making decicions they should not be allowed to make and multiplying their dollars. And don't forget the allopathic industry itself who are taking advantage of the insurance companies and bowing to the pharmeceuitcal "gods".
Consider this, just the sale of statin drugs rake in about 14 billion dollars per year.
Any health care reform that does not address all of these issues and that does not include the individual's right to use natural methods is nothing but a power play that will eventually bite us all in the butt!
I have a friend who is 82 years old and always been vibrant. She had a bladder problem and instead of following my advise had some uneeded surgery done. In the meantime it was decided her cholesterol was too high so they put her on statin drugs. Lately she has been experiencing arrythmia and has had to be stabelized three times. I know that her cholesterol is way too low so she has no protection for her heart. Of course they won't tell her that CoQ10 has been depleted. Low cholesterol can cause arrythmia. Now they've decided to go in a "burn" portions of her heart muscle to correct the arrythmia. I say, get off the statin drugs, build your cholesterol back up, then get stabelized and you will probably stay that way.
But then the drug company would loose money, and the Dr. doesn't have to wake up, and in no time at all she will be dead!
Naturalman! That is scary, germany use to be the mecca for herbal treatments. My mom is on zocor and I finally talked her into taking 30mg coQ, but after a month she quit. 6 months ago she was at the opthamologist and last week we went back. he told me her blood flow has improved. I have been giving her fish oil and something I call fruit drink (I take a vitamix and puress an apple, a kiwi and some berries). She has been taking tocotrienols regularly since then.
What we call healthcare is really sickcare. Healthcare reform may change some things, but it is still sickcare. That is where the profits are.
Real health will not come from a prescription. Modern medicine treats symptoms.
When you stop taking diabetic or high blood pressure medication, you still have the condition. Health comes many times from the lifestyle choices we make. Allopathic medicine isn't there for just your health, it is a business.
People are in charge of their own health. A doctor usually doesn't have a clue, about your individual lifestyle. When you take an over the counter medication on the back it gives you a dose for your age. That means a 250 lb male may get the same dose as 125 lb women.
Sometimes weight is taken into account, but male and female makes a difference as to how well the body handles the dose. Medication from prescription pads and over the counter can be dangerous.
Short term use is one thing, but a patient is a patient for life once started on many of these medications.
What a so called disease is many times a warning that body is overloaded with toxins, so adding more through medication in the long run doesn't improve the situation. It is like killing the messenger, that has the clues to what is wrong.
Diseases are really conditions in the body that come about through misuse and abuse of different substances. This would mean our so called food supply. This would not only be the amount, but the choices that we make.
Check this Site Out! My state has already voted in the Healthcare Nullification act, as well as Virginia and somewhere on this site is a map you can click on to see where your state stands. I can't find the page again as my computer is acting up so just look around
Check this Site Out! My state has already voted in the Healthcare Nullification act, as well as Virginia and somewhere on this site is a map you can click on to see where your state stands. I can't find the page again as my computer is acting up so just look around
I wish I could answer that. It's like the people who keep getting chemotherapy over and over again, even as they get sicker. They're dieing, and they know it; but they don't say anything. I don't know when trust of doctors transformed into some sort of hero worship.
Real health care reform has to come from the individual, not government or the insurance companies. People need to start taking responsibility for their own health, and stop relying on others to do it for them. When American's really embrace this, we wont need Big Pharma and big insurance companies, for the most part. Only emergency medicine will remain (car accidents, etc).
I agree. When my late husband was getting his chemotherapy, the nurses kept telling us, "It's not the cancer that kills you, it's the chemo that does" and I had to wonder why we were doing this then. I did a lot of research and discovered how many effective treatments, even for late stage cancers like his, were available that had nothing to do with chemo and radiation, but couldn't convince him to try any of them. It's that research and my soul searching during that time that led me into the field of Naturopathy that I'm studying to enter now. In the meantime, I am helping friends who have chronic conditions or cancer who want to learn how to manage it without drugs, and it's working. I'll help those who truly want to take control of their health, and their lives, do so as I now fight against allopathic medicine one person at a time.
Oh, and I've been doing what doctors say can't be done...managing my thyroid naturally for a year now. I agree that allopathic medicine has its place in diagnostics and emergency medicine, and conditions which do require surgery. It does not, however, have a place in long term management of chronic conditions since many can be managed without drugs if people make the necessary lifestyle changes.
The problem is that many are just too lazy to do that, and don't want to give up their sedentary lifestyle or their refined sugars and starches, red meats, and caffeine to exercise, eat healthy, and live better. They want the "quick, easy fix" of a pill, and think it will cure them. It's not until years of getting sicker and sicker and needing more and more drugs that many turn to alternative treatments and lifestyle changes. And some never do.
All that we can do is educate people one person at a time, and live our lives as examples, and reach out to those who are open to change. "One cannot push the river."
No Easy Health Reform
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