Lest I seem to give a false impression, let me make my stance clear. "Health care" is not, in my opinion, a universal right. "Health," however, IS a universal right (in any society that has any concern for the perpetuation of the species). The right to health carries the social obligations of:
1. Not harming the health of others, directly 2. Promoting health, generally speaking 3. Not unduly restricting individual access to nutrition, medical assistance, or education about health maintenance
The difference is subtle but crucial. For a society to be opposed to 1 through 3 seems ludicrous but one could champion all three without necessitating free universal health care. The current situation in the US is dire. We've layered semantics on the issue. What we've done, collectively, is we've established a culture that has a problematic view of health. Let's examine each of my three points.
1. Not harming the health of others, directly
We have promoted industrial practices (for as long as there has been industry) which puts economic success well above the health of the workers. and since Love Canal and the Hudson pollution and a million other examples, we can extend that point to assert that our industrial practices have put profit above general health of its own consumers. But that's just the schoolyard bully. Where else do we unconsciously violate this?
Look how our popular culture celebrates caustic lifestyles--drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. Granted the media has toned down its glorification of abuses (and, for the record, I am not 100% opposed to all legal stimuli). In short, you do not need to look far to see incidence of people flying in the face of medical warnings to introduce destructive chemicals and lifestyles into their bodies. So this point bleeds naturally into the second
2. Promoting health, generally speaking
By not making health a priority, we have a current obesity trend among both children and adults. It may be debatable how "direct" our poor parenting and low-prioritizing of exercise and healthy eating is. But you still see the attitude. We value things over health... even our childrens' health.
Even when we're not shooting up or rolling in known carcinogens, we neglect the promotion of health. In less developed cultures there did not need to be as much conscious effort, but the fact that we don't make the effort shows how far we've fallen from the natural state. And how much of our current medical practice is only corrective? The root causes of lifestyle health repercussions is viewed as beyond medical doctors' jurisdiction. We repeatedly bandage the skinned knee rather than point out that one wouldn't crash so much if one knew the proper way to ride the bike. Which leads us to:
3. Not unduly restricting individual access to nutrition, medical assistance, or education about health maintenance
Now here is where the Health Care system comes under more direct attack. Since we've already put health maintenance on a low priority, it is unsurprising that many health issues develop. But on top of that, the commercialization of medicine means that there's little in-house incentive to change. Healthier people means emptier hospitals. I'm not saying that physicians are misanthropic... simply that they've no market incentive to address the root causes.
I'm also not implying that there should not be commercial influence in medicine. It's the highly competitive pharmaceutical labs, after all, that help advance medicine. But there needs to be a balance. When a society unduly restricts access through rabid consumerism, inadequate insurance providers, and too high price tags on care then we've clearly become misanthropic as a people.
The health care system is the fire extinguisher and our apartment complex is burning. They didn't start the fire. The same docs who treat our burns live in our building. It's the ideology of the whole place, though, that made the fire extinguisher so pricey. It's the same ideology that furnished our pads with gasoline-soaked furniture. But we're to blame a bit, too, for buying that furniture to begin with. So where is this analogy going? The problem is bigger than just one health care thing. We need to address the culture. We need a culture of life, not of profit.
1. Not harming the health of others, directly
2. Promoting health, generally speaking
3. Not unduly restricting individual access to nutrition, medical assistance, or education about health maintenance
The difference is subtle but crucial. For a society to be opposed to 1 through 3 seems ludicrous but one could champion all three without necessitating free universal health care. The current situation in the US is dire. We've layered semantics on the issue. What we've done, collectively, is we've established a culture that has a problematic view of health. Let's examine each of my three points.
1. Not harming the health of others, directly
We have promoted industrial practices (for as long as there has been industry) which puts economic success well above the health of the workers. and since Love Canal and the Hudson pollution and a million other examples, we can extend that point to assert that our industrial practices have put profit above general health of its own consumers. But that's just the schoolyard bully. Where else do we unconsciously violate this?
Look how our popular culture celebrates caustic lifestyles--drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. Granted the media has toned down its glorification of abuses (and, for the record, I am not 100% opposed to all legal stimuli). In short, you do not need to look far to see incidence of people flying in the face of medical warnings to introduce destructive chemicals and lifestyles into their bodies. So this point bleeds naturally into the second
2. Promoting health, generally speaking
By not making health a priority, we have a current obesity trend among both children and adults. It may be debatable how "direct" our poor parenting and low-prioritizing of exercise and healthy eating is. But you still see the attitude. We value things over health... even our childrens' health.
Even when we're not shooting up or rolling in known carcinogens, we neglect the promotion of health. In less developed cultures there did not need to be as much conscious effort, but the fact that we don't make the effort shows how far we've fallen from the natural state. And how much of our current medical practice is only corrective? The root causes of lifestyle health repercussions is viewed as beyond medical doctors' jurisdiction. We repeatedly bandage the skinned knee rather than point out that one wouldn't crash so much if one knew the proper way to ride the bike. Which leads us to:
3. Not unduly restricting individual access to nutrition, medical assistance, or education about health maintenance
Now here is where the Health Care system comes under more direct attack. Since we've already put health maintenance on a low priority, it is unsurprising that many health issues develop. But on top of that, the commercialization of medicine means that there's little in-house incentive to change. Healthier people means emptier hospitals. I'm not saying that physicians are misanthropic... simply that they've no market incentive to address the root causes.
I'm also not implying that there should not be commercial influence in medicine. It's the highly competitive pharmaceutical labs, after all, that help advance medicine. But there needs to be a balance. When a society unduly restricts access through rabid consumerism, inadequate insurance providers, and too high price tags on care then we've clearly become misanthropic as a people.
The health care system is the fire extinguisher and our apartment complex is burning. They didn't start the fire. The same docs who treat our burns live in our building. It's the ideology of the whole place, though, that made the fire extinguisher so pricey. It's the same ideology that furnished our pads with gasoline-soaked furniture. But we're to blame a bit, too, for buying that furniture to begin with. So where is this analogy going? The problem is bigger than just one health care thing. We need to address the culture. We need a culture of life, not of profit.
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