Healthcare Reform is impossible without HEALTH Reform
Americans have the highest prevalence of Obesity in the world. Americans have the highest rates of heart disease in the world. We have the highest rates of Diabetes, ADD, EDD, and every other abbreviation for the multitude of “conditions” the pharmaceutical companies labels our complaints with so they can let you know your not alone and there is a drug with a list of side effects as long as the declaration of independence that can help.
Let‘s face it, we are a sick country. As Bill Maher said, isn’t it really America that causes cancer? Let’s start with our diet. The “Richest Nation on the Planet” cannot manage to nourish its populace better than Afghanistan. Our diets are over-processed, laden with damaged fats, refined carbohydrates, chemicals, and they are chronically missing all the trace minerals necessary for a healthy existence.. Is it any wonder we are sick? Add to that the fact that we also have far and away the highest consumption of prescription drugs in the world and you have a recipe for disease.
So how can we possibly reduce our healthcare costs if we continue to make our populace sick? Can we really reduce disease in this country without forcing people to stop ingesting garbage and chemicals as their regular diet?
I have to confess, while I have supported the democrats efforts at reforming the health care system, I am a bit libertarian in my feelings that WHY should I have to pay skyrocketing healthcare costs that are mostly a product of peoples ignorant eating habits?
It is no accident that our unhealthy habits are rampant. Curing us is BIG BUSINESS. There is little profit in keeping people healthy. Optimum nutrition cannot be patented or manufactured. The best vitamins in the world do not compare to carefully grown natural food from rich unexhausted soil. Good FOOD is the key to good health and there is NO study that can prove otherwise. So why is there literally NO money being spent educating people in this, the most important issue to our personal well being. Why is it that with Diabetes rampant in the US, the simple understanding of carbohydrate metabolism isn’t mandatorily taught in every high school in the country? Is it more important to know where Turkmenistan is? Most other countries have strong traditions that rule their lives including their diets, and so they tend to do the right things out of socially constructed habit, but many industrialized nations are following in our footsteps, becoming slaves to advertising, fad, and convenience, and getting sick just like us.
It is inarguable that this ignorance as to what to do to prevent illness is the primary driver in our rising health care costs. But you will never hear about it. Not if the high-fructose corn syrup lobby has a legal right to lie to you. And lie they will. And spend they will. They do everything they can to keep people ignorant of the dangers of their delicious poisons. Fats were conveniently made the enemy a decade back, when in fact quality, undamaged fats are essential to health. But the underlying justification for low fat food is it’s just another excuse to suggest that processed foods are good for you, and it is a LIE just like the suggestion that fat is bad for you is a LIE. Excessive fat is bad, as is excessive ANYTHING. But the normal levels found in quality foods are not, and in fact, the low fat, high carb diet promoted over the last decade has created in a gluttony of starvation in America.
The only entity that can effectively disseminate the truth about diet is the Government. There is simply no profit in educating people to be healthy. The big money is in disinformation. And there can be no such thing as reform of healthcare, at least in terms of reducing costs, without a reform of our health, and that can only be accomplished through education. The food market will not change until people BUY change. When people are willing to pay more for natural, quality food, the market will respond.
Frankly I am also a proponent of a Health Tax on bad food and pharmaceuticals. Just like cigarettes or alcohol, people who consume this cancerous crap should pay for the impact to MY healthcare costs.. Companies who profit from this vein hardening slop should PAY to offset MY rising insurance premiums.
And my kid should be able to learn in school, that eating refined sugars and highly p processed foods will KILL YOU.
Boycott the supermarket. Take the time to buy your produce from a local FARMER. Buy your meat from an organic, cruelty free farm. Give your money to those who make us healthy, and the market will follow. And tell your school you want real nutritional education taught now..
Or be sick and pay a fortune to insurance companies and doctors to heal your symptoms. But know this; there is no cure to be found in a hospital. It can only be found in your cupboard and refrigerator.