Things The Medical Establishment Does That Damages Health

Executive Summary

• Many areas of the medical establishment are damaging our health.
• We cover some important examples.

Introduction

While writing an article on the poor nutrient quality of food in hospitals, which you can read at The Irresponsible Poor Nutrition Quality of Hospital Food, I came upon the concept that hospitals and medical establishment doing things to damage health.

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Example #1: The Focus of Health Insurance Companies on Short Term Profits

One of the major problems with hospitals is their short-term profit orientation, which is opposed to preventative care. This is covered in the following quotation.

How are health insurance companies able to post $4 billion in Wall Street profit every quarter, boasting “business growth across all sectors?” Health insurance companies must increase premiums to beneficiaries, decrease reimbursements to doctors and deny coverage for care, citing pre-existing conditions and exclusion of services as their fundamental reasons. They segment the market into healthy people (80% or more) who can pay for the not-so-healthy people (<20%) who cannot pay but need care. They pay more for fix-it procedures like cardiac bypasses and punish people retroactively for going to the emergency room to seek care by denying “non-emergency coverage.” At the same time, they decrease preventive care reimbursements to primary care providers that keep patients out of the hospital.

Are health insurance companies really interested in keeping Americans healthy for the long-term, or more interested in a short-term view of increasing next quarter’s earnings? When money is in such short supply, will they truly invest in the long-term payment of aggressive, integrated health programs or will they attempt to keep their financial noses above water by paying as little as possible to the millions of aging people who are now burdening an already stressed system?

If you’re healthy right now, you’ll likely have trouble staying that way. You are the target group that needs to pay for disease care, now. Your money will be siphoned in the form of premiums and taxes at escalating amounts, effectively decreasing your ability to engage in health habits – quality food, nutritional counseling, preventive body work and rehabilitation, fitness memberships, personal trainers or psychological counseling for heightened levels of stress and anxiety over a healthcare system that’s imploding. In the end, you will squander your health care, now, for a future of disease that will never be “fixed” by a healthcare system with such short-sighted focus. – Kevin MD

Example #2: The Focus of the Cancer Industry

Believing that we are going to “cure cancer” has now become a wonderful lie that tugs at our hearts, opens our purses and perpetuates our reliance on drugs instead of funneling billions into the provision of health practices and education first. The National Cancer Institute 2012 Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer states that, “[cancers] are associated with being overweight or obese. Several of these cancers also are associated with not being sufficiently physically active.” But instead of money going toward aggressively correcting behavior, we raise money to endlessly search for a cure long after the fact.

Finally, what about our beloved medical specialists who, in America, out-number primary care providers by 3 to 1? How are specialists paid? How are they trained? – Kevin MD

Example #3: The Lack of Integrated Training

Conventional medical specialists are incentivized to cut, fix, prescribe and test. They spend 10-15 years in the minutia of disease mentality, gluing their eyes to the proverbial microscope. They are paid to search, find and destroy disease. The more specialized they are, the more disease-oriented their mind-set, having learned for many years to begin with the grossly damaged end product of a very sick living system – you – and then work backwards to find a cure. Specialists are not trained to step back and view the integrated big picture of health and its practices. Since they are experts in disease, their recommendations will be disease-focused under guidelines for the “prevention of disease,” rather than operating inside a paradigm of health first. At the end of that disease-focused exercise, specialists are taught to proudly declare that you, their patient, are healthy by virtue of the fact you don’t have a disease. And if they could not find a disease, they will be encouraged by a disease-oriented healthcare system to make up something in order to get paid; something called an ICD code. – Kevin MD

Example #4: Exploding Disease Classifications

The International Classification of Diseases or ICD-coding system which is the creed of the medical profession has gone from a few hundred categories to 144,000 in its recent tenth version. Doctors operating under this highly disease-driven medical system worth trillions are trained and paid as automatons to inadvertently deliver disease under a disguise of health care. And many don’t or can’t see that this is what they are trained to do.

The question is this. Can you separate yourself from a disease-oriented medical system to find optimal health, when all these parameters – health insurance, government programs, drug companies, and doctors – perpetuate disease via their beliefs, thoughts, training, messaging, and actions? – Kevin MD

Example #4: Poor Management of Infections by Hospitals

Every year an estimated 648,000 people in the U.S. develop infections during a hospital stay, and about 75,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That’s more than twice the number of people who die each year in car crashes. And many of those illnesses and deaths can be traced back to the use of antibiotics, the very drugs that are supposed to fight the infections.

Terry Otey appears to be one casualty in that ongoing battle. Three years ago, a few weeks after an overnight stay for back surgery at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Wash., he went to the emergency room vomiting, dizzy, and with excruciating back pain. Bacteria known as MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) had taken hold in his surgical incision and quickly spread to his heart. He died in the hospital about three months later, following a cascade of serious health problems. “He just wanted to ease his back pain enough to play golf,” says his sister, Deborah Bussell.