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

CST and Liberty Lost

I know there are lots of people who have not heard of Cranial Sacral Therapy (CST), some who have, and many who need to. It is what I have been taking classes to learn and spending many hours precepting with an excellent practitioner, gleaning all the knowledge from her that I possibly can. Cranial Sacral Therapy is an osteopathic technique that uses the hands of the practitioner to support the client’s body in such a way that the body heals itself. It uses a very light touch. It uses the electrical system of the body. In the way I was taught, it lets the body of the client decide how much treatment it needs and when it needs it.

This past weekend I assisted my Dr. with the first class in the series that she teaches. It was amazing to hear how the attendees took what they were learning and began to apply it to their loved ones after only two days in class and get results. I myself took a fall on Thursday morning and about two hours later began to experience intermittent shooting pains in my right temple. Due to the winter storm, I could not get in to see Dr. and on Friday I had to get my husbands car back to him because mine was in the shop. By Saturday, the shooting pains had ceased but I was so very tired, out of sorts and I felt like my brain was shutting down along with my whole body. I was about to stop what Dr. was doing in her instruction to the class to tell her I needed help, like now, when the other “helper” asked me if I was o.k. I said no and we went to another room where she began to work on me. When Dr. got done with the lesson and gave the class a break, she came and worked on me. I had somehow managed to move the bones of my skull when I fell and it was affecting my brain, and I mean it was no joke. When she was done, I got up from the table feeling as if I had just had a nice nap, and I could think again. What a relief! But it really got me thinking about how, if I did not know what I do about how a fall or an accident can affect you, I could have been a very sick puppie with no clue what to do. I had heard many of Dr.’s clients say that she was a miracle worker or an angel. How she had saved their lives or helped when absolutely nothing else would. How they could not move without pain and now the pain is gone. How they could not stand up straight and now they can. How they could hardly walk and now they are mobile. Now I really know some of what they feel. I am looking forward to the day in the not too distant future when I will be leaving my 9-5 and begin my own practice. This is a skill I can take with me, although I will have to be choosy about the state I live in as some have stupid rules about what one can and cannot do for a living and the type of training you have to have before you can touch someone.

Another choice gone; another freedom we have lost. We are not totally free to choose who will help us regain our health and we cannot choose when we want to take a drug. We must go to a state-approved person and only the state-anointed can “prescribe” a med that we may need.

And if we don’t want to take a drug, we may have to put up a fight. I just had surgery and I did not want the prophylactic antibiotic they had scheduled to give me. Of course they had to check with the anointed one who agreed that I could forgo the drug unless I developed symptoms of infection. You see, I know that they (all hospitals) are working on keeping infections down in surgical patients because it prolongs the hospital stay. The hospital gets paid according to a DRG (diagnosis-related group). For example, you are hospitalized to be treated for congestive heart failure and you stay 2 days. Your neighbor is also put in for the same thing and stays 13 days. You both have the same diagnosis. The hospital gets paid the same amount for both of you. So they make more money the fewer days you are in. So these great educated medical professionals decided that they would shoot every surgical patient up with a strong antibiotic with the hope that it would stop infections. Easy solution and the drug companies make more money to boot. Good for making the hospital more money too, but not so good for the patient who really did not need the antibiotic as antibiotics are not benign.

Do know any doctors that even ask the patients if they want an antibiotic they may not need? I don’t. Most docs think they are demigods, and they certainly don’t want to waste their time explaining things to you. Or give you much of a choice. Most think patients or families that ask too many questions or don’t go along with the doctor’s every wish are “difficult.” If I did not work in the medical field on my 9-5, I may not know about this drug protocol, but I did know, and it saved me money and exposure to drugs that could kill off the good bacteria we all carry around with us that helps us digest our food and keeps our internal ecological system healthy. Please remember, you are paying the doctor/hospital which means you call the shots. You are employing them. You are paying for their expert (hopefully) opinion, but you do not have to take their advice. You can refuse all or part of your treatment. It helps to do so respectfully, but it is your body and you are the owner of your body.

Cranial Sacral Therapy is a wonderful thing for many people, but as with anything there are those who practice it that are not the best and those who are like my dear Dr. So what are you to do? Ask for references from real people. If you don’t get some really good feedback, seek out another practitioner. Some say there are not enough medical studies or enough scientific evidence to prove it really works. I say talk to some real people; the proof is in the pudding. Medical science takes way too long to get with the program. This is the profession that shamed the first guy to say you should wash your hands between doing autopsies and delivering babies. The profession that said it was harmless to x-ray the unborn. That said margarine (full of heart-clogging transfats) was better than butter. I don’t trust them; I do trust real people and their stories.

Wishing you health,

HUP