U.S. HealthCarelessness
- Calvin Mitchell
- May 16, 2017
- 3 min read
Only five percent of the United States (U.S.) population is uninsured (thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act (ACA, i.e. Obamacare). So what’s the big deal?!?
No big deal at all…unless you’re uninsured and have to swallow basic medical, dental and eye care costs (not to mention unforeseen emergencies) out of pocket–or, having insurance, you’re slammed with a big-ticket procedure that drains you of every asset you have and throws you and your loved ones under the weight of crushing debt.
Healthcare is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. (62% of all personal bankruptcies)!
Point of Fact: Healthcare Insurance does NOT protect patients from overwhelming healthcare debt!
What am I missing here? Isn’t a significant percentage of the whole point (objective) of healthcare insurance to enable patients to tend to their health WITHOUT going broke or worse??? Wouldn’t I be an idiot to pay health insurance premiums month after month, making someone in a corner office incredibly rich and yet NOT be able to afford life-saving procedures when the rubber actually hits the road???
Hmmmmm…
My wife has healthcare insurance through her employer and yet STILL had to pay hundreds of dollars for an MRI!
And yet for all the money we Americans spend on healthcare (more than any of the other 13 high-income nations: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), we STILL DON’T GET THE WORLD’S BEST HEALTHCARE!
Point of Fact: the U.S. spends more on Healthcare than any other high-income nation.
The U.S. holds the world record for maternal mortality (mothers dying during child birth) at 26 deaths per 100,000 births; Texas’ maternal mortality rate has doubled between 2010 and 2014.
The U.S. doesn’t even rate among the top ten countries in regards to life expectancy. If you’re an American male you’d live a longer life in Israel than in the U.S. If you’re a American female you’d add years to your life by moving to South Korea.
Point of Fact: spending more money on healthcare does NOT equate to better health outcomes.
According to the Bible (considered by many to be the most historically accurate library of documents ever written) God gave early humanity a virtually perfect healthcare system. The cost: obedience. Adam and Eve were given the perfect diet of herbs, vegetables, fruits and seeds–raw and uncooked–along with access to the Tree of Life to guarantee immortality.
Even after Adam and Eve stopped paying their premiums (and became disobedient) adherence to their original diet granted them lifespans so huge (well-over 800 years) modern science considers them mythological.
Down through time, as disobedience became more popular, lifespans continued to drop. It wasn’t until Noah’s time, when killing animals for food became a thing, that God told his people to distinguish between clean animals (that could be eaten–provided the blood was drained first) and unclean animals.
Even today, it is statistically proven that those who adhere more closely to the Biblical diet–including Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists–live longer, healthier lives.
Point of Fact: living God’s Way is inherently more healthy and beneficial.
Time for the nitty-gritty: outside of obedience to what may be considered “common sense” dietary principles (and the animal sacrifice/worship thing), GOD DID NOT CHARGE HUMANITY ANYTHING FOR A HEALTHY LIFE…HEALTH WAS AND IS THE RIGHT OF EVERY CREATURE UNDER HEAVEN. The Bible’s statements regarding diet and health amount to “Don’t do stupid stuff like putting you hand in a fire or drinking the blood of a dead animal.” Like all of God’s Commands, His directives on diet and health, if examined with thoughtfulness, JUST MAKE SENSE.
Which means NOT doing what the Bible says is…well…silly.
Now I wish to turn one more corner before I conclude what will probably NOT be my last blog post on healthcare…
A knee replacement costs $25,398 in America and $12,589 in the Netherlands.
A standard birth/infant delivery costs $10,002 in America and $2,251 in Spain.
An MRI costs $1,145 in America and $138 in Switzerland.
Humira, AbbVie Inc.’s best-selling rheumatoid arthritis treatment, costs an estimated $2,500 a month in the U.S. after discounts, compared with about $1,750 in Germany
Why?
Because the Swiss government WILL NOT ALLOW the same healthcare providers we Americans use to price-gouge its citizens.
The Federal Drug Administration allows healthcare providers and drug companies to charge WHATEVER THEY WANT…regardless of the consequences to the American people.
Point of Fact: GREED is, for lack of a better term, BAD for healthcare.
Whatever America decides to do to reform it’s healthcare system, getting closer to the Biblical model AND THE CHARACTER AND INTENT behind that model, will only bring us more satisfaction and happiness.
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