I have said this in this forum for years saying that the word cure was left out of medical system years ago now even the money people are agreeing with me. Wall Street Admits Curing Diseases Is Bad For Business https://www.truthdig.com/articles/wall-street-admits-curing-diseases-is-bad-for-business/
Of course Health care is a Business just like any other and everyone involved in it certainly wants to make a profit for sure. Yet I believe if there weren't so many greedy people wanting to make the big bucks and doing whatever it takes to do just that...the Health Care Industry would not have the bad name that it does. We as Health Care consumers have to make sure we are not being taken advantage of too. Since signing up our Medicare Advantage Plan I have noticed how it seems the Medicare Plans want to push the Specialists on you at a higher Co-Pay instead of just letting your Primary Physician handle many things instead. I talked to my Primary Doctor and told her that I did not want to see a Specialist unless there were tests, etc. that she could not do or if she felt it was truly necessary. There is a big difference between a $5 co-pay and a $40 one...especially when the same stuff is being done. We need Health Care, we need good Doctors....what we don't need is to be ripped off just because we do need these things.
Just like most services for Seniors, money talks. Some of us live very, very comfortable, while others definitely don't. Then again, those Seniors that live in smaller areas, with much less populations, I think get better service, but, unfortunately, the cost can be the same. The monthly premium and deductible for Medicare can be pretty pricey for those on a fairly low (SS only) income. The folks that I really, really feel sorry for are those Seniors that are on expensive medicine.
They have left out one word out of all medical texts that is the word cure because it is bad for business. If doctors started curing people they might put themselves out of business and that is their fear. The medical system helps them by only allowing them to use drugs and not natural cures. The list of people that come to my house with problems and leave cured is getting very long.
It's the same way over here @Martin Alonzo. I'm pretty sure they do have natural cures for a lot of illnesses but they don't want us to know that as there is no big bucks for them if they give us that cure right off. Even when they know they have a drug that can cure a disease...they will not give that out right away for the same reasons. And much of the medicine they do give...actually makes people sicker.
The point that Martin is bringing up is a valid one, a conspiracy perhaps, but not a theory. People from Goldman Sachs and others who own our healthcare system were actually discussing the fact that cures are not profitable, and that we should not be looking for a cure for cancer, for heart disease, or anything else. An example he gave was Hepatitis 3. They recently came up with a cure, I know, because my wife was saved by it. It was a course of medications that actually removed the virus from the bloodstream. According to Goldman Sachs, that was a mistake because, although the medication was hugely expensive, they could have made more money treating the symptoms, which would get increasingly worse until the person eventually died from the disease. He, and his wasn't one lone, crazy voice, argued against making the same mistake with cancer or heart disease. Nor was he simply some nut with a crazy idea. These are the people who make the decisions. As anyone who has gone through treatment for cancer knows, the treatment for cancer is very expensive, and a lot of people get paid along the way. In the end, it is considered a cure if the patient is cancer free for ten years. When the cancer comes back, it's considered a new event. Not only do the doctors, the pharmacologists, the radiologists, the surgeons, drug companies, hospitals, laboratories, and everyone who works for them make money, but large amounts of tax money is confiscated from the people who earn it, and there is a vast industry raising funds for cancer research, as well as the research centers themselves. All of that goes away if they find an actual, permanent cure, and let it out.
Ken, is Hep 3 the same as Hep C? Hepatitis is generally designated with letters, not numbers, and the letterss (that I know of) go as far as J. The first 4, A,B,C, and D being the most important. While there is a large profit motive in healthcare just as in any other industry, I don't think the problem lies in the individual physicians and their practices. While some larger clinics and such are profit engines, many individual physicians are struggling to stay afloat--in large part due government interference. I can only speak for the U.S., but FDA approval of anything--devices, drugs, procedures--requires billions of dollars to go through the regulatory process. "Cure" that bring in little profit simply cannot get through the approval process. There is the famous case of the wife of Larry Flint, the Hustler publisher and well-known pervert, who had terminal liver cancer. The medical establishment basically told her to go home and die as there was nothing that could be done. She began frantically doing research to find a treatment, and she found a research program at the University of Syracuse in New York that was addressing her illness. She applied to the program and was accepted. After a few weeks on the treatment--used in the USSR and brought to the West in the early 1990s--her tumors were shrinking and the side effects were mild compared to the treatments she had already endured. Amazed, she asked the researchers how long it would be before this treatment would be available to the public. The doctors told her "never". The treatment only cost $20 a week for the chemicals used and no one could go through FDA approval for something so cheap. While she did die of the disease, she lived for a year or so longer than predicted. My favorite story is the STATIN craze. Statins were developed as anti-inflammatory drugs, but during the trials, it was discovered that lowering blood cholesterol was a side effect of the drug. Well...while anti-inflammatory drugs are pretty big money makers as folks, especially arthritics, are on the drugs for years, the patient pool is somewhat limited while the market for cholesterol-lowering medications is large. Big pharma pressured the various organizations to lower cholesterol "normals" (i.e., Reference Ranges) to artificially low levels so that very few people would actually be "normal" without treatment, so the upper level of normal was reduced from 240 mg/dl to 200 mg/dl (~5.2 mmol/L). That created a very large market for the drug class and almost every drug company on the planet now profits from producing and marketing one of the statin drugs. Of course, lowered cholesterol is important for a limited number of patients, but the number of folks taking statins is far greater by orders of magnitude than those who really should be taking those drugs. Government interference here is the biggest single reason that medical costs are so high.
It makes my bp go even higher when I dote on the facts about these findings...even though they are nothing new. When I went to my cardio dr. the first time after my chf in Dec. ...first thing out of his mouth...I am the cheap doctor...your going to get cheap drugs because they do the same thing as the expensive ones. My kind of guy !
The medical system makes costumers people go to the doctor with arthritis and he gives you a pain killer or steroid and not how to make it better. Most arthritis is cause from a lack of cartilage and the pain killers and steroids stop the body from making cartilage. In time making the problem worse. My mother in-law and the doctor he said she had congestive heart failure high blood pressure enlarged heart and high cholesterol put her on 4 different drug she came to me I told her just to take one. In three month using vitamins and minerals changing her diet she when back to see the doctor he took her off all drugs and said she was healthy. If I did not intervene she would be still on those drugs and looking at a shorter life span.
@Martin Alonzo , I'd be interested in hearing what med and what kind of diet you recommended for her. My doctor says I have "Mild" heart failure. I'm not on any meds for it but I'd like to keep it that way.
No, we can't afford a cure. Look at all the people who would be without a job. Pharmaceuticals involved would take a dip. Stocks would drop, Opinion pages would turn out columns berating the dumb cluck who discovered a cure and published it. Bad repercussions all around. It's better we keep looking for a cure even if we found one. Or so I've read.
I just received notice my VA eligibility has been lost because I started drawing social security and my income is over the limits. (I have no service connected disability.) So now I'm dreading going back to the for profit system. I wish we had a single payer system. I'm not yet 65 so I won't have Medicare yet. I suspect a year of paying my own healthcare might end up being more than I get from Social Security. Lol