The American health authorities are constant telling us that we have never been healthier. The national cancer Institute try to ensure us that we are winning the war on cancer. The American Heart Association and the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute all claim that thanks to them cardiovascular disease declined since 1970. The FDA claims that it protect the nation’s health very effective.
They claim certain advances in medical technology or the development of some wonder drugs which have improved the treatment of major diseases. At first impression you could accept their reasoning, but we will see that they are wrong at the end. New drugs and medical gizmos may seem to work in the clinical trials to get them FDA approval, but the only real test of their effectiveness is weather or not they reduce mortality in the population in general.
Death as a measurement is something you can rely on. After some days of decay, even the most stubborn physician has to admit that the treatment was not working. When there is a medical speciality that claims great advantages, then there should be less death. When we cut through all the statistical nonsense about treatment, what count at the end is the fact that good health care results in longer life and bad health care results in shorter life. That’s a fact you can’t change! If we look at the table of Life Expectancy for males and females,we can see that America went from 7th place in 1950 to 17th place in 1990.
As a matter of fact, the health care system claimed by President Clinton to be “the best anywhere”, is actually near the worst. For the last 40 years, the American health care has gone downhill. In 1950, they were way ahead of advanced countries like Switzerland, Japan,and Canada. Now they are way behind. The reason of this failure has to be found in greed and corruption. As Dr. Paul Starr from the Harvard University explains in his book, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: After the Second World War, medicine in America started to become an industry, rather than a profession.
By 1950, the giant pharmaceutical companies, the hospital and ambulance companies and the medical equipment companies wrested the control of medicine out of the hands of the physicians and into the hands of entrepreneurs. That was the beginning of medicine for profit rather than for health. This social disaster earnestly went ahead in 1968, when the Humana organization started buying hospitals and set up a much-copied, high-profit model of health care to be provided throughout its holdings. Physicians, administrators and hospital service organizations all had to follow the corporate line.
How much profit did they make? If you bought a share of Humana in 1968, it cost $8. Twelve years later, in 1980, it was worth $336. That’s an increase of 4200% , which is an absurd amount of money extracted from human suffering. This case of Humana is only one example of profits from illness that make nonsense of current government and media claims that health care is a basic right.
Current US health care is simply business as usual. An Industry that over the last 40 years has proved itself to be totally ineffective in improving and maintaining the population’s health. The best advice you can get is to stay far away from it as long as you can,if you like to remain fit and strong!