Brenda Skidmore's Health Tips

It seems like the American media is focused and driven on bringing the health care reform debate into our living rooms via the television, newspapers and magazine articles every chance it gets. It has captured most of our citizen's interest to say the least. Some of us are more focused on this heated argument than others, but most have some sort of an opinion on the eventual and hopeful outcome. I believe this is a good thing, and the importance of it can not be put off much longer.

My feelings surrounding the health care reform debate is not that this sort of thing is not sorely needed, because it is painfully obvious to me that preventable diseases are running rampant in the United States. With no negative emotion felt towards pharmaceutical interventions any longer, I have come to view it all as a dismal failure of an experiment in treating diseases for most folks. Not everyone of course, for those who faithfully believe this sort of treatment for disease works, then it works for them.

For those of you who have a hard time swallowing this form of treatment, then it just will not cut it for you. No matter how many different man-made, chemical cocktails you are willing to try, or not try. In taking the treatment, you seem to have a negative reaction to the idea that 'something' is dreadfully wrong with you, and that you (somehow) will be unable get better without some type of intervention. You may also feel like you deserve to have more unbiased options presented to you.

This way is costing you a lot of time and money, not to mention some undesirable side effects. In other words, your confused and scared. You fear that you won't get better with the medications, and your scared that if you do nothing it will only get worse. And, your probably right on both counts because that is your emotional response to the problem.

This is the big mess the health care delivery system in The United States (and other modern countries) is in right now. Until a more open-minded approach to reforming health care, by teaching us how to prevent diseases, is brought out on the table for an intelligent discussion, the lack of one will only come back to haunt us again and again until we open up to doing just that.

There has been no discussion of how to control the rising costs of the current medical health care system. Those that have a personal self-interest, and are heavily invested in the current system, are going to try and keep it the only option available no matter what the costs. The rest of us are not going to be overly thrilled at the thought of paying for someone else's medical expenses that would rather have some of the finer, material things in life than pay for their own health care costs. Why not buy that new 'Blackberry' instead of medication for my newly diagnosed diabetes. Why don't I just let the system pay for my dismal health, because I'd rather have fun playing with my new toy!

In the same way some people would prefer to eat a well-balanced meal, as apposed to eating an artery clogging fast food meal, we choose our lifestyles based on what we would prefer to be doing or eating. But,if we make too many unwise decisions, our lifestyles will begin to control how comfortably we are able to live out our lives. In other words, our lifestyles will end up controlling us. Regardless of what your perception of health reform should be, some common sense approaches in changing a few of your lifestyle habits would probably go a long way in helping you appreciate how efficiently your body was actually designed to perform.

Or, should the minority among us have socialized health care reform imposed upon us all because the majority are neither inspired nor motivated to make better choices for themselves?

What about those among us who are willing to make those changes on our own, shouldn't we have the option of opting out of the system if we can prove, in some way, that we are taking better care of ourselves than others are?

Tough but honest questions, your thoughts?