January 6, 2010

• Medical Misgivings

  The Congressional debate on “health” “care” “reform” has gotten my attention from time to time.  I was not sure, from the start of this discussion, that we would end up with any significant change of any kind.  I am never sure, on any topic, whether change is for the “better” or “worse.”  Ambivalence is my dharma and one of my greatest assets.  I’m usually able to see more than one side of every issue, and ever since menopause when I outgrew the neurochemical insanity of  falling into (romantic) “love,” I have not been carried away with unalloyed enthusiasm for anything.

  Here, in no particular order, are some of my thoughts on the matter of “health care reform:”

  • The medical profession has earned my distrust through numerous misdiagnoses of my chronic illness, treatments that resulted not in improvement of my condition but in new iatrogenic disease, and one incident when an injection stopped my heart.  Therefore, I do not associate “health” with medical “care”.  Funneling more money to physicians and bringing more people under their care could well result in higher rates of medical mistakes and iatrogenic disease.  Giving more people access to hospitalization will almost inevitably result in more people being infected with the drug resistant strains of microorganisms that are bred in hospitals.
  • I am keenly aware that reforming any system, making any significant change to the way things work, is likely to result in gains for some and losses for others.  The way of the world in current times is such that reforms often result in ever greater wealth going into fewer hands, while more and more people live in deepening poverty.  Reforms currently under discussion will enrich insurance companies at the expense of the general public.
  • Insurance is against my religion.  It is, in its essence, betting against oneself.  Some insured people often don’t have a clear intention to, for example, avoid accidents and stay healthy.  If they don’t wreck their cars or their health, they lose all those premiums they’ve paid.  Even those who don’t sabotage their own well-being with such thoughts can tend to be careless if they assume that they are “covered” when anything goes wrong.  In my far from humble opinion, mandatory insurance is as much an infringement of my freedom of religion as the prohibition of polygamy is to a Mormon or Muslim, and the prohibition of ganja, peyote and other sacramental plants is to other believers.
  • Existing practices of employer-provided insurance have driven some employers out of business, and the proposed reforms appear likely to increase that trend.  These practices also impel some workers into, and keep them in, jobs for which they are ill-suited, which are detrimental to their mental and physical health, because they feel they cannot afford to give up the insurance.  They are indoctrinated with insurance propaganda, as are those who decry the single-payer system as socialism.  So what?  Who cares what they call it?  The U.S. is the only developed country that does not provide for its population’s basic medical needs.  Is that really cause for patriotic pride?
  • Do you know the difference between “addiction” and “chemical dependency”?  The only difference is a matter of medical hypocrisy.  If someone self-medicates or uses a drug for his own purposes and develops a neurochemical dependency on a substance, that is “addiction.”  If a doctor prescribes a drug and the patient develops the same neurochemical dependency on that substance, that is, “chemical dependency.”  By some sort of semantical hocus pocus, our society stigmatizes addiction unless it is medically mediated and euphemized as chemical dependency.  When I mentioned “iatrogenic” illness above, did you understand it to mean that my illness was caused by medical care?  If so, that places you in the minority.  Many normal people skim over such words, assuming that they are abstruse medical jargon beyond their comprehension.  That is what the majority of the medical profession wants us to think.  I won’t deny that there are honest and honorable physicians.  I have known a few, but arrogance is rife in the profession and most physicians adhere to a code of silence regarding their colleagues mistakes that makes the Mafia’s code of omerta seem like transparency.  This may be beside the point of “health care reform,” as it is currently understood, but I would like to see such issues be a focus of health care reform.

  
    

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