This is a troublesome road to go down, because it cements and increases the role that large pharma has on our health care system.
It is critically important for everybody to understand that large pharma has no interest in making being healthy; the financial incentives in this system encourage drugs to be created that manage symptoms of illnesses, without actually curing the underlying problem. If the treatment has another side effect that requires further treatment, that's even better from a corporate financial bottom line POV.
Research into true cures need to be publicly funded without corporate interference so as to make sure they are as widely available as possible. Natural treatments that are easily accessible to all should be researched first, as opposed to artificial and expensive pharma drugs.
The most important part of any observation/revamp/examination of the health care system is keeping people healthy in the place, not treating them with drugs when they start to get unwell.
And there are so many, many things that need to be addressed in our society in order to keep people healthy:
- encourage physical fitness through proper urban planning and creating walkable communities, largely serviced by superb public transit and alternatives like biking and cycling
- discourage the ingestion of unhealthy food-like products through financial incentives (the more a food is processed and has unhealthy salt, sugars, chemicals added to it, the larger the tax on it - these taxes could be used to subsidize healthy, unprocessed foods)
- hard limits on the garbage they add to food like salt, fructose, refined sugar, etc
- improved nutritional teaching in schools, including preparation of healthy meals
- full support for physical fitness in schools, with lots of after-school sports, gym, etc.
- only serving healthy options in schools.
- adopting a precautionary approach when it comes to chemicals, pollution, radiation in our environment - if the company can't prove it's safe, then it shouldn't be used/ingested.
- helping people understand that health does not start with a pill, and how important it is to control what we take into our bodies and the effect that it has.
- teaching parents how important nutrition is for children in every aspect of their life. I see so many parents giving their kids complete junk as lunch and snacks, not having any idea how much damage they're doing to their children.
- ensuring companies that create huge social costs, like cancer and obesity, pay the price and that we don't subsidize them at the cost of the average person's health.
- changing the way doctors treat patients in order to give them enough time to holistically understand someone's health picture and help them get healthy, and identify potential issues at the earliest possible time. Right now, 7 minutes per patient visit, one at a time, only perpetuates a system of treatment with drugs, and having serious illnesses routinely missed until they become quite serious.
These types of changes will have a more profound and lasting effect on our society, at an overall lower cost, than lining the pockets of big pharma for expensive illness treatments for problems that other industries, and our own collective ignorance, have created.
The bottom line is that we have a finite amount of resources. I would greatly prefer to invest those in the front line of keeping people healthy, rather than at the back end where big pharma has a goal of keeping people not quite sick enough to die, and on as many medications as possible.
http://www.healthcaretransformation.ca/en/topics/view/id/1#comment-3
