US Health Care - Propose a solution in accord with Tao

[Ya Mu]

This thread on Buddhism, as usual was derailed, and raised a lot of points about health care in the USA. But I saw no solutions proposed.

 

Fact: Health care in the USA is not available to everyone as many can not afford it.

 

Fact: Many who do work and attempt to take care of themselves get ill and find themselves losing their homes and unable to support their families due to exorbitant health care costs.

 

Fact: We who do attempt to take care of our health end up paying for those who smoke, drink, and overeat excessively because they get sick.

 

What is a solution in accord with Tao?

 

Argue for or against govt health care but propose a solution.

 

One solution I propose is education; integrate Chinese and other self health care like qigong. More education in the schools on the effects of smoking, eating well, exercise, and substance abuse like crystal meth. But the govt is not really going to do that, folks like me are a drop in the bucket making the attempt to do that, but perhaps the first step of a thousand mile journey... What is YOUR solution?

[markern]

 

 

Fact: We who do attempt to take care of our health end up paying for those who smoke, drink, and overeat excessively because they get sick.

 

 

 

I am not sure if it is a solution in acordance with the Tao but I propose to tax unhealthy food a lot and make healthy food a lot cheaper. That way people will eat healthier and those who choose to eat unhealthy sort of "pay" in advance for the extra health care costs by paying for highly taxed expensive food. I don`t think giving less of a treatment to those who have not lived healthily is a good solution. When people are ill I want to help them even if they caused it themselves. Also socioeconomic background and other contextual factors largely determine who lives and eats healthily and who does not. If you look at the poorest areas in the US and Western Europe average life expectancy is often lower then third world countries (Fidel Castro (to score politcal points I am sure) even wanted to send his doctors to certain areas of the US because many places the health of the population and also the heatlh care available in reality (without insurance) is worse than several third world countries for example Cuba where it is quite good). It is not completly irelevant either that people who live very long and do not work in their retirenment cost society a lot more then those who eat themselves into a heart attack a year after retirenment. I would like to see a survey that factors this in when the cost of an unhealthy lifestyle is factored in.

 

Several of my friends who have gone to the states for short vacations gain a lot of extra pounds because they have difficulty finding non fattening food a lot of places and because the portions often are much larger. In other places tough I had problem finding youghurts that were not low fat, low carb, green, fair and al sorts of other good stuff so I hope that signifies change.

 

I think that the spread of meditation yoga and qigong is inevitable. If you look at what is happening in psychology with mindfulness based stress cognitive therapy, the mind and life dialogues, the spread of yoga in health clubs, the spread of midnfulness teachings in schools, some huge companies understanding that meditation can save them a lot of money and so making their emplyees start meditationg etc. And all the research being done showing how effective this stuff is for happiness heatlh, extraordinary quality of life, memory and inteligence (if you want to stay a head in college in the future you will ahve to cultivate) etc. etc. That in turn leads to much more healthy lifestyles with good eating habbits etc. So in the long term I think meditation, qigong and yoga will be the core of not only the health care system but our society at large. It will take some time but i think the speed with which we are traveling towards this is increasing. When healing is recognised as well that should cut costs a lot because both education and treatment give more healing per dollar.

[Enishi]

[Zhuo Ming-Dao]

I agree that the U.S. could go a very long way towards rectifying its health care just by removing some of the open disdain that the American Medical Association has for traditional approaches to health and health care. Since the AMA's opinions largely drive state and federal policy over what procedures must be done and what a person can or cannot do with themselves, their opinions contribute greatly to the problem.

 

For example, the AMA is strongly opposed to natural childbirth and even normal medical childbirth in which the interventions are limited. If you look at a state like Illinois, where their grip is the strongest, you will find that it is an illegal CRIME to have a home birth that comes with serious fines for the family and jail time for the midwife. I have know people in Illinois who have to temporarily move out of state just to be able to have a birth without such serious, "necessary" interventions from the hospital as internal fetal monitoring (screwing an electronic sensor into the baby's skull) during perfectly normal, rapidly progressing births. Each one of these unnecessary interventions costs huge amounts of money. Also, the U.S.'s c-section rate now accounts for over 33% of childbirths! The World Health Organization has repeatedly shown that no population should have higher than a 12% c-section rate. Doctors in the U.S. regularly perform unnecessary, major surgery merely out of convenience for them and in order to cover their butts for perceived liability reasons. And yet, this problem does not exist in most European countries, where there successful childbirth rates are perfectly comparable to our medical intervention based system.

 

This is just one example, but their are many other potential examples of this kind of financial wastefulness due to the fear and hatred of traditional or holistic methods that exists in the medical world today.

 

I will never understand why seemingly intelligent and highly educated adults (most of the medical establishment) would think that expensive cortisone shots (pain killers) for back troubles for the rest of a person's life are somehow better than using chiropractors, medical massage therapists, physical therapists, or the like to try and correct the problem.

[Zhuo Ming-Dao]

I am not sure if it is a solution in acordance with the Tao but I propose to tax unhealthy food a lot and make healthy food a lot cheaper. That way people will eat healthier and those who choose to eat unhealthy sort of "pay" in advance for the extra health care costs by paying for highly taxed expensive food. I don`t think giving less of a treatment to those who have not lived healthily is a good solution. When people are ill I want to help them even if they caused it themselves. Also socioeconomic background and other contextual factors largely determine who lives and eats healthily and who does not. If you look at the poorest areas in the US and Western Europe average life expectancy is often lower then third world countries (Fidel Castro (to score politcal points I am sure) even wanted to send his doctors to certain areas of the US because many places the health of the population and also the heatlh care available in reality (without insurance) is worse than several third world countries for example Cuba where it is quite good). It is not completly irelevant either that people who live very long and do not work in their retirenment cost society a lot more then those who eat themselves into a heart attack a year after retirenment. I would like to see a survey that factors this in when the cost of an unhealthy lifestyle is factored in.

 

Whose definition of healthy food are we planing on using? Do you mean organic?

 

This is actually a very important question, because most healthy food (ESPECIALLY ORGANIC) is completely unsustainable. It is wonderful for groups of people to eat healthy foods, but if you got everyone in the country off of all of the corn and soy food "products," away from food that uses heavy pesticides and petrochemical-based fertilizers, and off of food that uses sophisticated preservatives, we would not be able to support our population in the United States and feed everyone. Your proposal would create mass starvation across the world (the U.S. exports huge amounts of its surplus, which would not exist if even the majority of Americans were eating healthy). We saw this happen when the U.S. decided to start giving tax breaks to farmers who produced ethanol. Those farmers stopped making surplus corn and soy for export, and within a couple of months, hundreds of thousands of people in 1st Nation (3rd world) countries suffered and died of starvation because of it.

 

The truth of the matter is that it takes almost 10 times as much land to produce food organically than in the "normal" way (due to crop rotation and soil nutrients). If everyone in the U.S. ate organic, everyone in the world would suffer, not to mention the fact that food would be so astronomically expensive that the economy would collapse.

 

Then there are just supply and demand problems. Here is an example: The head chef at McDonald's R&D wanted to make a more healthy sandwich that included a slice of avocado. After he submitted his new sandwich, he was informed by his numbers people that if McDonald's launched this burger they would have to buy up the entire world's supply of avocado, leaving none for ANYONE else.

 

We just have too many people in the world and even in the U.S. for absolutely everyone to eat healthy food...

 

If by healthy, you just mean to limit transfats or something small like that, then the implications would not be quite as world ending

[joeblast]

The US is a capitalist society for the most part. Want to control costs? Let a properly structured market do it. For example, there are all of these ridiculous state laws about what's required and what's not - the end result? Zero competition across state lines. Where's the areas that have dropped most significantly? Areas that are not covered within our crappy insurance schema - lipo, cosmetic - elective stuff where all the normal BS jargon doesnt apply, the free market and competition drives prices down because there is actually incentive for the business to do so. Within the current scheme, there is ZERO incentive for all of these costs to come down because nobody questions the costs - here you go, here is your bill. There is simply no reason not to be able to shop around for better prices - its what has made all of the technology available to us come down so rapidly in price - all without subsidization, because in areas like that, the market has the breathing room to work properly.

 

If you want prices to go down, put people in closer proximity to the numbers. We dont see much of anything and we pay large sums of money just to be covered.

 

We need to eliminate the healthcare from going through your employer's hands. It is entirely unnecessary - they are getting a far closer look at costs than we are and it makes each little group (aka those that you work with that share your plan) subject to the significant ails of others within that group. Look at how auto coverage is done - your auto coverage you can buy from any state, wherever, as long as you're meeting your coverage needs, and you dont need your "group" to be in your state, and the company can tailor itself to a certain section of the market and provide really well for that subsection. Also, auto coverage doesnt cover crap like tire changes, oil changes, gas - general maintenance. We should have expanded use of HSA and FSA accounts that are tax free to cover "maintenance" - and then serious stuff, run that through your insurance. It would get a lot of wastefulness out right there. Combine that with the elimination of state lines for coverage and you can have significantly larger coverage groups - and the result will be that you will have bunches of companies covering certain groups well, just like with auto insurance. Employers, pay a tax based on company size and revenue, but get all of the paperwork and overhead away from the businesses. It will save them time, money, and personnel.

 

Of course there should be an appropriate amount of gov regulation to prevent fraud, and a measure of subsidization for those that cant afford it.

 

This horseshit bills I keep seeing paraded around is more expensive, counterproductive, and is going to hurt us more than help us. We dont need our government controlling more than they already do (overreach is the standard these days.) They're already proven they're on par or worse than climate researchers trying to predict a sunspot cycle for chrissakes.

Edited September 20, 2009 by joeblast

[Ya Mu]

Some very good points have been made so far.

 

...

I will never understand why seemingly intelligent and highly educated adults (most of the medical establishment) would think that expensive cortisone shots (pain killers) for back troubles for the rest of a person's life are somehow better than using chiropractors, medical massage therapists, physical therapists, or the like to try and correct the problem.

 

This is something that I have to deal with everyday. Very difficult to provide education of these things to people who do not wish to listen. But we, IMO, do need to try.

[Ya Mu]

The US is a capitalist society for the most part. Want to control costs? Let a properly structured market do it. For example, there are all of these ridiculous state laws about what's required and what's not - the end result? Zero competition across state lines. Where's the areas that have dropped most significantly? Areas that are not covered within our crappy insurance schema - lipo, cosmetic - elective stuff where all the normal BS jargon doesnt apply, the free market and competition drives prices down because there is actually incentive for the business to do so. Within the current scheme, there is ZERO incentive for all of these costs to come down because nobody questions the costs - here you go, here is your bill. There is simply no reason not to be able to shop around for better prices - its what has made all of the technology available to us come down so rapidly in price - all without subsidization, because in areas like that, the market has the breathing room to work properly.

 

If you want prices to go down, put people in closer proximity to the numbers. We dont see much of anything and we pay large sums of money just to be covered.

 

We need to eliminate the healthcare from going through your employer's hands. It is entirely unnecessary - they are getting a far closer look at costs than we are and it makes each little group (aka those that you work with that share your plan) subject to the significant ails of others within that group. Look at how auto coverage is done - your auto coverage you can buy from any state, wherever, as long as you're meeting your coverage needs, and you dont need your "group" to be in your state, and the company can tailor itself to a certain section of the market and provide really well for that subsection. Also, auto coverage doesnt cover crap like tire changes, oil changes, gas - general maintenance. We should have expanded use of HSA and FSA accounts that are tax free to cover "maintenance" - and then serious stuff, run that through your insurance. It would get a lot of wastefulness out right there. Combine that with the elimination of state lines for coverage and you can have significantly larger coverage groups - and the result will be that you will have bunches of companies covering certain groups well, just like with auto insurance. Employers, pay a tax based on company size and revenue, but get all of the paperwork and overhead away from the businesses. It will save them time, money, and personnel.

 

Of course there should be an appropriate amount of gov regulation to prevent fraud, and a measure of subsidization for those that cant afford it.

 

This horseshit bills I keep seeing paraded around is more expensive, counterproductive, and is going to hurt us more than help us. We dont need our government controlling more than they already do (overreach is the standard these days.) They're already proven they're on par or worse than climate researchers trying to predict a sunspot cycle for chrissakes.

 

One of the problems we face is the suit-happy public driving up costs to the physicians. Does anyone realize the cost of insurance the physicians have to pay? Another problem, related to this one, is the "standard of care". If a physician sees someone, they HAVE to provide the "standard of care" or they open themselves up to a lawsuit. An example of this is antibiotics when not needed. The physician may know of a completely safe natural method, but if they do not prescribe this "standard of care" BOOM, lawsuit possibilities where the physician can lose their license. If this were not the case we would see much more natural health care.

Edited September 20, 2009 by Ya Mu

[markern]

Whose definition of healthy food are we planing on using? Do you mean organic?

 

This is actually a very important question, because most healthy food (ESPECIALLY ORGANIC) is completely unsustainable. It is wonderful for groups of people to eat healthy foods, but if you got everyone in the country off of all of the corn and soy food "products," away from food that uses heavy pesticides and petrochemical-based fertilizers, and off of food that uses sophisticated preservatives, we would not be able to support our population in the United States and feed everyone. Your proposal would create mass starvation across the world (the U.S. exports huge amounts of its surplus, which would not exist if even the majority of Americans were eating healthy). We saw this happen when the U.S. decided to start giving tax breaks to farmers who produced ethanol. Those farmers stopped making surplus corn and soy for export, and within a couple of months, hundreds of thousands of people in 1st Nation (3rd world) countries suffered and died of starvation because of it.

 

The truth of the matter is that it takes almost 10 times as much land to produce food organically than in the "normal" way (due to crop rotation and soil nutrients). If everyone in the U.S. ate organic, everyone in the world would suffer, not to mention the fact that food would be so astronomically expensive that the economy would collapse.

 

Then there are just supply and demand problems. Here is an example: The head chef at McDonald's R&D wanted to make a more healthy sandwich that included a slice of avocado. After he submitted his new sandwich, he was informed by his numbers people that if McDonald's launched this burger they would have to buy up the entire world's supply of avocado, leaving none for ANYONE else.

 

We just have too many people in the world and even in the U.S. for absolutely everyone to eat healthy food...

 

If by healthy, you just mean to limit transfats or something small like that, then the implications would not be quite as world ending

 

I never said tax unorganic food. Fruits and vegetables get cheaper, sugar and potatoe chips get more expensive. If you get people to eat more vegetables and less meat that will go a long way to solving the food crisis as much more land is required to feed people eating meat. As for definition of healthy food one just goes with the most obvious and and well documented examples and leave the rest.

[vsaluki]

They're already proven they're on par or worse than climate researchers trying to predict a sunspot cycle for chrissakes.

 

LOL. Yeah, I've been following that drama for the last couple of years. At first NASA's top scientist were saying that we were about to have the largest solar cycle in the last 400 years. Then when it wouldn't start when they predicted, they simply moved the time line for the same prediction to the right. After that went on for a while and the sun was still not responding they started to drop the size of the solar cycle. Now it looks more like we are going to have one of the smallest solar cycles in 400 years. It's been a real comedy. Of course that extends to the global warming predictions as well. We haven't had any global warming for the last 11 years. They used to tell us that the effects of CO2 would override all natural cyclic temperature effects and that the temperature would simply keep rising. Now they are saying that we have had no temperature rise because the natural effects are overriding the CO2 effects temporarily. But when you ask them specifically what natural elements of temperature variation are now holding the temperature down, they can't tell you. They simply don't know. So on the one hand they cannot explain what we have already seen for the last 11 years, on the other, they claim that they can predict the next 100 years. Then there's the polar ice shrinkage issue. After the 2007 low in Arctic sea ice some of the scientist thought that we might actually see an ice free north pole in 2008. There were numerous newspaper articles about it. It turned out that the ice coverage increased in 2008, and then increased even more in 2009. Of course through all of this they completely ignored the fact that we had some near record highs in sea ice extent in the south pole. And they ignore the fact that we had an ice free north pole about 6000 years ago. Alarmism is a growth industry. Crazy.

 

Regarding the healthcare issue, I agree with you. There is inadequate competition. A friend of mine had eye surgery recently and he showed me his billing statement. I was shocked at what the Hospital charged for the simplest items. We need to increase the supplies of healthcare and require that doctors and hospitals list the price of all of their services on the internet; and that they give anyone who wants one a price menu at the front door. We badly need tort reform. We could do this independently without effecting the current system. We could have done it years ago. I mean who was against it? No one but the lawyers. And their contributions to the Democratic party kept it from happening. Then when we've lowered costs as much as possible, we need to figure out who is simply too poor to afford health care and we give these people health care vouchers to use with whom they choose. Some people in the gray area financially may get vouchers to supplement what they can afford. Those who can afford health care for themselves would be on their own. They could buy it or not buy it. But the government wouldn't bail them out either way. In my mind, that would solve the coverage problem, introduce competition, lower costs, and best of all, keep the government out of it - other than supplying the vouchers.

 

I don't know what the Tao answer would be. I don't think that Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu had healthcare coverage. But I would refer people to the first four lines of Sutra 58 of the Tao Teh Ching.

 

Regarding the taxation of fattening foods - I don't believe that we have the right to tell people how to live. And if we are going to force them on government healthcare, I don't regard that as an excuse to tell them how to live. Just think about how far the government can go with that. The fact that we believe that people should live healthy life styles is nice, but it doesn't give us the right to run others lives. I go for a bike ride in the mountains five times a week, keep my weight down, and my health up. When I go to the Mall and see the parade of grossly overweight bodies, I'm a little disgusted. But I value freedom above all else, and so I would never presume to tell these people how to live.

Edited September 20, 2009 by vsaluki

[gendao]

This thread on Buddhism, as usual was derailed, and raised a lot of points about health care in the USA. But I saw no solutions proposed.

 

Fact: Health care in the USA is not available to everyone as many can not afford it.

 

Fact: Many who do work and attempt to take care of themselves get ill and find themselves losing their homes and unable to support their families due to exorbitant health care costs.

 

Fact: We who do attempt to take care of our health end up paying for those who smoke, drink, and overeat excessively because they get sick.

 

What is a solution in accord with Tao?

 

Argue for or against govt health care but propose a solution.

 

One solution I propose is education; integrate Chinese and other self health care like qigong. More education in the schools on the effects of smoking, eating well, exercise, and substance abuse like crystal meth. But the govt is not really going to do that, folks like me are a drop in the bucket making the attempt to do that, but perhaps the first step of a thousand mile journey... What is YOUR solution?

There has to be financial incentives for maintaining good health and disincentives for maintaining poor health. People who maintain good health should pay LESS than (through a lower initial rate or refunds) than those with poor health. People should NOT be forced to all pay the same amount (or some even for free) - regardless of vastly different health, lifestyles and behaviors.

 

And I believe holistic care should be covered (at least partially) by insurance. Of course, this is going to require an entire paradigm shift*, first...

 

Right now, I am forced to pay for all my holistic care 100% out-of-pocket, even that's all I primarily use. So, insurance is of little use to me, except as a safety net in the event of a catastrophic emergency.

 

But, people should view health care insurance as a back-up plan, anyways. Your real health insurance is your own lifestyle and self-maintenance. When that goes down the tubes, being "covered' and having dollars and pills thrown after the fact are not necessarily going to fix the problem, in reality. Point being, people shouldn't RELY upon insurance and health care to keep themselves healthy. That's a false sense of security.

 

 

 

 

 

* Natural, holistic methods can be cheaper, safer and more effective than synthetic, pharmaceutical medicine. However, they can be harder to test consistently...and also far less profitable since they are often unpatentable. Therefore, who is going to spend the tens of millions it takes to get a holistic remedy through Stage IV clinical testing???

 

I believe this is where enough grass-roots studies and support could justify Federal funding. I mean, if we can spend $700 billion on corporate Bailouts and $80 million/month on a wild goose chase in Iraq...surely we could better appropriate such funding for our citizens' health? And on an investment that could actually save us billions down the road...

 

But until holistic therapies can get legitimized through clinical testing or more studies...I doubt they will get covered by insurance more...and we will just keep marching down the very expensive, profit-driven path away from natural & real healing. And that path leads to spiraling costs that nobody can really afford, with often limited results.

[Ya Mu]

...

Regarding the taxation of fattening foods - I don't believe that we have the right to tell people how to live. And if we are going to force them on government healthcare, I don't regard that as an excuse to tell them how to live. Just think about how far the government can go with that. The fact that we believe that people should live healthy life styles is nice, but it doesn't give us the right to run others lives. I go for a bike ride in the mountains five times a week, keep my weight down, and my health up. When I go to the Mall and see the parade of grossly overweight bodies, I'm a little disgusted. But I value freedom above all else, and so I would never presume to tell these people how to live.

 

Not arguing whether you are right or wrong, but, just to clarify, are you OK with paying out of your pocket for health care for the intensely obese person walking into a medical clinic smelling of alcohol, with a coke in one hand and putting out a cigarette before she/he enters the clinic to get treated for high blood pressure and diabetes, who the doctor suggests she/he starts an exercise program and he/she replies" I barely can get up from the couch to get a soft drink and some potato chips"? This describes at least 30% of the folks where I live.

[Encephalon]

[Martial Development]

This thread on Buddhism, as usual was derailed, and raised a lot of points about health care in the USA. But I saw no solutions proposed.

 

Fact: Health care in the USA is not available to everyone as many can not afford it.

 

Fact: Many who do work and attempt to take care of themselves get ill and find themselves losing their homes and unable to support their families due to exorbitant health care costs.

 

Fact: We who do attempt to take care of our health end up paying for those who smoke, drink, and overeat excessively because they get sick.

 

What is a solution in accord with Tao?

 

Solution? You haven't yet defined the problem. In the meantime, here are a few questions to ponder...

 

* Who is responsible for your health? (Yourself, or someone else?)

* Should health be mandatory, and sickness illegal? (If so, then how should the government punish the sick?)

* Is "health insurance" the same thing as "health care"?

* Is "health care" the same thing as health?

 

After you've identified the problem, then clarify: whose problem is it exactly?

[Ya Mu]

Solution? You haven't yet defined the problem. In the meantime, here are a few questions to ponder...

 

* Who is responsible for your health? (Yourself, or someone else?)

* Should health be mandatory, and sickness illegal? (If so, then how should the government punish the sick?)

* Is "health insurance" the same thing as "health care"?

* Is "health care" the same thing as health?

 

After you've identified the problem, then clarify: whose problem is it exactly?

 

I think this subject is everyone's problem.

 

Just a few of the problems were outlined, as facts, unless you don't consider them a problem and think it is OK. If so, then that is your opinion and you can't offer a solution if you don't consider it a problem. But there are many who do consider it a problem, and several have expressed opinions as to a solution. You hint at problems/solutions but do not clarify exactly what your opinion is.

 

You live in Missouri, right? Cultural traditions die hard.

...

 

True, but I could point out this scenario in just about ANY part of the country.

[NeiChuan]

My solution is you just dont put a price on health and purpose false attempts like "public option".

 

There's nothing insulting to peoples intelligence then a lie like that.

[Ya Mu]

My solution is you just dont put a price on health and purpose false attempts like "public option".

 

There's nothing insulting to peoples intelligence then a lie like that.

 

Don't understand exactly what it is you are proposing. What exactly do you mean by "don't put a price on health.."? Are you saying that health care should be free? If so, then who do you propose to pay for it? Why is it your opinion that the "public option" is a false attempt?

 

My understanding is that a long time ago in China the doctor would see his patient on a regular basis and as long as the person stayed healthy the doctor received regular payment. If the person got sick then they no longer payed the doctor until they were well again.

[everseeking]

Having only read the name of this post, let me say this:

 

Dying is natural, so let people who are old, and will have no quality of life die with some measure of dignity.

 

Adress the WHOLE person, not just their body.

 

Many people don't take care of themselves, yet expect for medical professionals to perform miracles, making them better.

Well, these people need to gain personal responsibility somehow. Carrot or stick, who decides? Do we force them to exercise and eat right? Or just stop taking care of people who don't take care of themselves?

 

Then there's the insurance companies. Charging high rates, due to the high cost of care, which is due to 1-the fact that many many people don't pay for their care or have insurance, yet federal laws require care to be given. And 2-the fact that in the USA our medical infrastructure is driven by capitalism--which is great for the entrepreneurial spirit and thus problem solving, but bad whenever big pharma tries to patent the human genome and charge ridiculous amounts of money for their products.

 

So, we need TCM to be integrated into our medical system, for its preventative and holistic care, and this may happen someday.

 

 

Really, people in general need to do the right thing. But that is a choice, and you can't institute morality. So, I say, go back to natural ways more, or let nature take us back to it. Mother Earth will take care of it, as she always has.

 

N-

[NeiChuan]

Don't understand exactly what it is you are proposing. What exactly do you mean by "don't put a price on health.."? Are you saying that health care should be free? If so, then who do you propose to pay for it? Why is it your opinion that the "public option" is a false attempt?

 

Yeah healthcare being free.. Yeah. Thing is Obama doesn't need public option to be bipartisan to pass it.. Think of all the things Bush passed.. Its very very very unlikely the majority of repubs that are bought out and display there viewpoints widely would EVER choose for something like that.. Thing is Obama ofcourse knows this.. Hes the president.. If he dident.. Hes not educated. He's not going for the public option - its just so later he can say he tried it.

[Ya Mu]

Having only read the name of this post, let me say this:

 

Dying is natural, so let people who are old, and will have no quality of life die with some measure of dignity.

 

Adress the WHOLE person, not just their body.

 

Many people don't take care of themselves, yet expect for medical professionals to perform miracles, making them better.

Well, these people need to gain personal responsibility somehow. Carrot or stick, who decides? Do we force them to exercise and eat right? Or just stop taking care of people who don't take care of themselves?

 

Then there's the insurance companies. Charging high rates, due to the high cost of care, which is due to 1-the fact that many many people don't pay for their care or have insurance, yet federal laws require care to be given. And 2-the fact that in the USA our medical infrastructure is driven by capitalism--which is great for the entrepreneurial spirit and thus problem solving, but bad whenever big pharma tries to patent the human genome and charge ridiculous amounts of money for their products.

 

So, we need TCM to be integrated into our medical system, for its preventative and holistic care, and this may happen someday.

Really, people in general need to do the right thing. But that is a choice, and you can't institute morality. So, I say, go back to natural ways more, or let nature take us back to it. Mother Earth will take care of it, as she always has.

 

N-

 

Well said. I hate the "fix me" mentality I see in my clinic. (Take responsibility? Who Me?) is the attitude I mostly get. About TCM, a local physician tried to start offering acupuncture in one of the local medical clinics and the hospital who owned the clinic would not let it happen as they said "show me where the AMA endorses this as a "standard of care". Pure Ignorance! One redeeming thing is that a local emergency room doctor referred a patient to me for medical qigong recently.

[Martial Development]

I think this subject is everyone's problem.

 

Just a few of the problems were outlined, as facts, unless you don't consider them a problem and think it is OK. If so, then that is your opinion and you can't offer a solution if you don't consider it a problem. But there are many who do consider it a problem, and several have expressed opinions as to a solution. You hint at problems/solutions but do not clarify exactly what your opinion is.

 

Anyone can state obscurant facts and then decry an alleged crisis. If you want to have a serious discussion, please start with a straightforward definition of the problem.

 

"The problem is _____________________."

 

One cannot hope to solve a problem they don't understand.

[Ya Mu]

Anyone can state obscurant facts and then decry an alleged crisis. If you want to have a serious discussion, please start with a straightforward definition of the problem.

 

"The problem is _____________________."

 

One cannot hope to solve a problem they don't understand.

 

Sorry you don't understand, here it is re-written.

 

The problems are:

THIS is a problem> Fact: Health care in the USA is not available to everyone as many can not afford it.

 

THIS is a problem> Fact: Many who do work and attempt to take care of themselves get ill and find themselves losing their homes and unable to support their families due to exorbitant health care costs.

 

THIS is a problem> Fact: We who do attempt to take care of our health end up paying for those who smoke, drink, and overeat excessively because they get sick.

 

What is a solution TO THE ABOVE STATED PROBLEMS in accord with Tao?

 

Why don't you simply state your opinion? If you don't agree that these are problems then say so AND please say why you do not perceive them as problems.

[frp]

[vsaluki]

Not arguing whether you are right or wrong, but, just to clarify, are you OK with paying out of your pocket for health care for the intensely obese person walking into a medical clinic smelling of alcohol, with a coke in one hand and putting out a cigarette before she/he enters the clinic to get treated for high blood pressure and diabetes, who the doctor suggests she/he starts an exercise program and he/she replies" I barely can get up from the couch to get a soft drink and some potato chips"? This describes at least 30% of the folks where I live.

 

 

Am I okay with paying for that. No, of course not. But that is the catch 22 that we find ourselves in when we pay for healthcare with tax money. First we force people into a government financed and controlled system, then we claim that we can tell them how to live their lives. If government health care is going to be a given, then we have two options. Take away peoples freedom and tell them how to live, or pay the tab for that freedom. My vote will always come down on the side of freedom - even if I don't like paying for it. But the problem goes further than that. If we are going to regulate and tax and coerce based on the healthcare excuse, then where are we going to stop.

 

We start by taxing fattening foods. Of course you can get fat eating pasta.

 

How about alcohol and cigarettes. Their consumption is going to result in bigger tax payer bills.

 

How about people playing too much video or watching too much TV. That can make them fat and unhealthy. Should we have regulations only allowing people 1 hour of each a day.

 

How about surfing the net and talking on social forums. Enough of that will certainly widen out your butt.

 

Maybe we could mandate that everyone show up at a common location for exercise every day. That would help their health.

 

How many things about the way that you live your life effects your health. I mean where does it stop. I could imagine the fat guy that you described above saying, hey if you are going to tell me how to live because of healthcare costs, then I don't want people taking my tax money to pay for some hokus pokus holistic health programs that have never undergone the billion dollar testing programs or even the emperical validity test that other forms of healthcare must undergo.

 

Then we could all fight over who has what right to impose what kind of regulations on whom. In the meantime, government is writing more laws and taxes every day limiting our choice of how to live. Government is always happy to play off groups against each other.

 

We all think that we know better how other people should live. The test of your believe in freedom and your own right to freedom lies in your willingness to defend the freedom of people whose actions you don't approve. In my opinion, the Toa way is to have yourself flow with the universe. It's not forcing others to flow as you think they should. That's like trying to turn the yin yang symbol all into what you believe to be white.

[idquest]

preventive medicine would be an economical norm. frp

 

Those are key words. Tao in fact is a form of preventive medicine. Any kind of preventive medicine is better than the lack of one.

 

Solution: encourage public to take care of themselves with the preventive medicine. Discourage relying on medical doctors and hospitals.

 

A healthy lifestyle is an effect of the preventive medicine taken as a broad category.