freedom and responsibility

I work in health care and I also work in alternative health care.

I do not think the current debate about health care is going to get us anywhere because we are debating the wrong thing(s). It is the basic assumption of most that health care is a basic human right, something we all deserve to have and if I can't pay for mine, then you and all the other yous out there should pay for it. ????

Our Constitution states that we are given certain rights by God: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Food, shelter and health care are not listed. The federal government was not and is not to be in the business of supplying food, shelter, health care, education, or any other service or commodity. But we have not been diligent, and we have lost our Republic; we have slipped into a democracy. And as a democracy, the people found that they could vote themselves favors. Steal from the rich (and not so rich) and give to the poor and the illegal immigrant. Add to that mix men who knew how to manipulate coming in as wolves in sheep's clothing and our public servants selling "we the people" down the river by allowing all of our silver and gold to be exchanged for useless federal reserve notes, in direct opposition to the dictate of our Constitution. As a result, we are now about to pay the piper and it isn't going to be pretty. But I digress.

Health care costs rose to exorbitant rates because government started paying for people to get health care and if you ain't the one paying, you don't care how much something costs. It didn't take long for the providers to get greedy and find ways to abuse the system. In response to the abuse, the government came up with a set of numerical codes that were used to track people, diagnoses, and treatments to make it harder to abuse the system. Insurance companies quickly followed suit in order to protect themselves by using the exact same codes and many of the same rules as the government. But all of this paper work and tracking and bureaucratic oversight increased the cost of delivering health care by a huge margin. I remember when my GP started billing me on the basis of the diagnosis for my visit instead of how long he spent with me. Huge increase in cost. And when I inquired about the change, I was told to talk to the wind, that is the new way. I was told that for every doctor in practice, 4 more people had to work for him just to do the danged paperwork. When I was young I had an older doctor who had just one RN working with him. She made the appointments, set up the tests, gave the shots, and called you with the results. Do you know of any doctor out there today that can get by with only one employee?

Same thing for hospitals; they must employ people whose job it is to make sure everyone is assigned the correct code(s) so that the hospital gets paid as much as possible. If the code for the diagnosis does not match the treatment, you are not going to get paid. Beyond all the employees it takes to do that, experts and even consultants are hired to help the docs and hospitals to understand what is required for the paper work to be submitted properly so they can get paid. But that is not all, the powers that be can change the rules at any time concerning which code you need to use to get paid. They have a web site posted with a gazillion rules and regs that you are supposed to keep up with and let me tell you it is nigh unto impossible...

So, in my estimation, that is the real reason health care costs so dang much. If all the docs and hospitals could get rid of the their medical coders, charge leaders, and bureaucrats, the cost of health care could plummet. But that would mean you would have to go back to being responsible for paying for your heath care yourself. Just like you pay for any other service you deem you need. Novel idea isn't it.

As a prepper, start thinking about becoming responsible for your health yourself. Educate yourself so that you know when you really need to go to the doctor and when you don't. They are not going to give you an antibiotic if you have only been sneezing for 3 days. Pretend you are paying every penny for that office visit..do you even know how much a visit costs? Many people do not, they just know their co-pay etc.

Do you know basic first aide?

I have more to share but out of time,
HUP