Healthcare law. What a premise.

What a lot of people absolutely hated about “Obamacare” despite our need for Medicare and Medicaid programs, is that it was “mandatory” to pay private insurers. We were told we would receive a tax penalty if we did not have health insurance. No matter what exceptions or changes followed, that is all some people heard and it is what a lot of people remember about that Healthcare law.

Yet, you had so many employers, like Walmart, only hiring part-timers so that they didn’t have to give their employees benefits. Try affording Marketplace Insurance on $12 an hour, especially in today’s economy where people struggle to afford their groceries. I just looked at the Healthcare.gov site today, and for a person making $36,000 per year, the lowest premium they had to offer was $770 per month.

Making laws around the health of anyone born on your turf. Mandating that people pay businessmen, the insurers, and advertising the products, synthetic medications and procedures, for profit. Corporations combined with Big Government have created consumers out of patients.

The inhibiting factor to improvement in all of the systems in America, is American culture itself. There are tangible ways to improve our Healthcare systems.

Americans must make a choice and stick with it. We must agree health is not political and that neither political party has represented the American public when it comes to our Healthcare. If we want our Healthcare system to change for the better, and for the wellbeing of those who use it – we must make the critical choice to be patients instead of consumers. 

The American obsession with consumerism and with the appearance of the power of choice, has us willingly buying our health for profit from businessmen, not healthcare professionals. There are actually less choices for the consumer, but big box chains that offer the minute clinic plus the drive-thru pharmacy make it appear as if we have “more & better” choices. America loves “more & better” and thus, we pay for what we get.

We pay taxes, we pay premiums, and we get disappointed on the return. We are told where we can go, the “in-network” doctor, the “in-network” lab, we can only get the medicines that are “on the formulary” and at the “preferred pharmacy.” We pay for the insurance coverage on all these services – but we don’t have the choice on where to “shop”. We still pay copays and deductibles.

We have to understand what true health is – we have to admit what it is not. We do not need to advertise dangerous drugs on TV or in magazines, or Online. We should never be advertising prescription medications to the public.

Instead of laws allowing for drug companies to pay for advertising their “medications” to consumers, they should be forced to put out commercials that don’t mention the “medication” at all, but rather educate the public about the preventative measures we can all take to remain healthy and avoid that particular disease state.

If we are doing our jobs as healthcare providers, people are going to be less sick, which means people are going to be taking less medications, not more. Said another way – we need to be getting people off prescription medications, not putting them on more medications. We need to contribute to people’s health – not to their dependency on drugs.  We don’t need a “hims” or a “hers” Online clinic.

This requires the American public to do something they are not good at – be accountable for their own individual health and wellbeing. We can’t be a public that wants to take a magic pill instead of one who naturally has the lifestyle that enables and embraces good health. And when we do meet with an unexpected health event, we shouldn’t fear going bankrupt trying to achieve or maintain a state of wellbeing throughout life.

If we were to make the choice to become patients again, we would get what we pay for in terms of coverage for us through the tax dollars we already pay into our broken system. When we make informed choices, and with a transparent, single-payer, patient-driven attitude, a preventative healthcare system that saves everyone money in the short term, and long term, can easily be achieved.

The profiteers will have to invest elsewhere. The single-payer isn’t going to pay more for prescription medications than they do in say, Canada. Drug companies still make a profit from other countries who pay less for the same medications.

This requires a shift in cultural perception here in America.

So many of us think the problem is corporate greed. While it is one of the problems, the main problem is our cultural susceptibility to the illusion that our physical, emotional and mental diseases and discomforts can be fixed by a pill or procedure. That some practitioner must prescribe that pill, or order the procedure, so that we can feel, function and look better.

In our current culture, it seems our doctors and pharmacists are just a means to an end and we don’t care how bionic we get as long as we have our first world comforts. We are used to being sold our health and wellness solutions. It becomes normal to pay some wealthy corporate executive for something you want, even if that thing is a better body through a weight loss injection or more time with your grandkids by using insulin to avoid hospitalization from high blood sugar damages, like losing a foot.

We seem to have forgotten that access to clean water and healthcare, safety and the freedom of choice, are all first world basic human rights. If we really had some kind of “America First” mentality we would be directing our tax dollars back into the systems to benefits the tax payers – like Education and Healthcare – instead of giving $3 billion to the richest man in the world for tech contracts, space stuff and of course spending a lot on defense. We still don’t have proper cell service, broadband, and other first world basics like natural gas lines in rural parts of America.

We seem to be fast becoming a third world country despite being home to the top three of the richest men in the world. The governments, especially the largest bodies, don’t really work for the average person. We are getting left behind by the same people that are supposed to be ensuring our right to thrive in the free world.

Yet, we must make the choice. We must embrace wellness as an investment in our health. We must see ourselves as patients only, and that means we only really need the medical system when we have to address illness, acute or chronic. We should not be approaching it like we are consumers who can buy our skinniness and our regulated blood sugar and blood pressure from profiteers.

Canada is a first world country. It’s not like our neighbor to the North is bankrupting its citizens when they get sick. We have to be open to doing what is right. Americans must make the choice to be patients. They must make the choice to be healthy over being right.