Critical Debate on the Future of Healthcare

Healthcare’s Honeytrap

The lure of a cure on the road to chronic dependency

If you’re one of the many who don’t consider your health as your primary priority and if you still dwell under the illusion that modern healthcare will “cure” you of any potential conditions you might develop, then I strongly urge you to read this article to its conclusion.

Meet Simone

Simone is 46, American, and she is chronically obese. She suffers from all the accompanying conditions associated with being severely overweight with a BMI of 42. She takes medication to regulate her high blood pressure, medication for an enlarged heart, Type 2 diabetes, opioids to combat the pain of her osteoarthritis and has recently been diagnosed with stage 2 colon cancer.

While she receives treatment for all the above, none of the medicines she consumes on a daily basis offer a “cure”. They merely seek to treat the conditions that are directly related to her obesity. In a perfect world, Simone would be taught to regulate her diet, restrict her calorie intake and enforce an exercise regime. Instead, she is directed into a downward spiral of an ever increasing numbers of drugs, administered to “treat” her obesity related conditions and unfortunately for Simone, things are about to take a turn for the worse.

In their never ending quest for profit, a lucrative avenue has opened itself up to pharma, a new generation of drugs, specifically designed to counteract the negative effects of existing drugs. There is genius in the simplicity. In countries like the United States, where obesity has become the norm rather than the exception, most people start and end their day with a fistful of medicines. It’s the new societal norm, where fat is rebranded as normal and obesity is celebrated.

Don’t exercise and eat whatever you like, we can treat all those niggly health conditions associated with it.

Sadly, nothing is further from the truth, as Simone is discovering. After ten years of being chronically medicated, she now finds her drug regimen supplemented by yet more medicines, these designed to “counteract” the effects of literally poising herself with pills for nearly a decade. While it can be argued that Simone is directly responsible for her plight, she can in truth only shoulder a small portion of blame.

Oxymoron’s

Healthcare, in a word. Coopted by pharma, it no longer places the interests of its patients first. For those doctors who still try and abide by the oath they take, compliance is enforced through systems that are gamed to ensure “treatment” over “cure”. In pharma’s zero sum game, patients always draw the short stick. Healthy, “cured” individuals do not require medication. How much profit, would you imagine, drug companies have generated with medicines designed to wean patients off opioids, an epidemic they co-scripted and orchestrated?

While it may be true that Simone was told she would need to diet and exercise regularly by her doctor, that conversation was the equivalent of a tele sales marketer reading out the fine print at the end of a successful sales call. Conscience cleared, lets move on to medicating.

The above example does not simply apply to obesity, or conditions associated with it. It is true across the spectrum of medical conditions healthcare treats. Medscape provides a damning collection of articles on clinical trials completed or underway, for drugs designed to counteract the side affects of existing medications. Medscape are merely the messenger, imparting news that the general public is blissfully unaware of.

Healthcare professionals, for the most part, are numbed. Resistance has become futile.

This leaves the unwitting patient in a veritable “no mans land” where their health is concerned. Most people do not realize or appreciate the downward spiral associated with seeking healthcare or medical assistance. The belief that doctors still hold their patients best interests at heart and will endeavor to cure them, still prevails. Covid may have awoken a small percentage of the population, but for the majority of people, the illusion of the 1920’s small town doctor still prevails.

Pharma is all to well aware of this, and it preys upon the trust of the general populace, this despite the fact that America’s healthcare system is now in total disarray. Coopted political intervention, main steam media manipulation and the hope of health maintain the illusion that you are in safe hands.

The Lure of the Cure

Broken an arm, dislocated a hip, ingested poison? These are relatively simple medical procedures with mostly positive outcomes, or “cures” if you prefer, and lets be honest, we’ve no where else to turn. Our modern societies have become ensnared in a myriad of closed systems, insurance companies, financial institutions, academia, and many more. These systems are all profit based and healthcare is no different. In fact, healthcare may very well be the most lucrative of all. Particularly in countries like America.

So where does this leave people like Simone? Where do they first turn for help and is their doctor their best option? Again, in a perfect world, your doctor would be your first avenue of recourse to resolve your health issues. We don’t however enjoy this luxury and there are other alternatives to doctors, but seeking assistance from alternative health practitioners, dieticians and the like, can be a path equally fraught with danger.

The lesson Simone’s life, which will be cut short, has to offer, is simply this. Keep yourself healthy. Exercise regularly, eat less and be more selective about what you eat. Don’t heed this simple advice, and odds are you are going to become obese, develop diabetes and all that follows. You will undoubtedly end up next to Simone, on a gurney, in a local morgue, with half your life unlived.

Healthcare cannot help your body combat the ravages of chronic obesity, they can merely delay your inevitable date with that gurney. Forewarned is forearmed.

To my many colleagues reading this, who may take affront at the generalizations in this article, I know you are out there. I know you genuinely and deeply care for your patients, but the odds of someone like Simone being fortunate enough to end up in a chair in front of you, are minuscule. Perhaps if our populations were shocked into awareness, the healthcare system might adapt and evolve into what it was ostensibly designed to be. One can but dream.

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Robert Turner
Robert Turnerhttps://medkoin.health
Robert is the co-founder and Editor Emeritus of Medika Life and a prolific author on all things health related. He is involved in numerous health-related start ups that promote equitable and accessible care. His passion for the industry and a realization of healthcare's increasingly fragile future led to the creation of the FOHI. He is also the founder of Clinics IV Life, a non profit focused on providing maternal care to disadvantaged communities.

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