Health and Americans

I have listened and read with interest the widely diverse and opinioned comments of those seeking to make sense of the health care crisis in our nation. As a user of this system and one who has overseen the care of elderly family members for a number of years, there is much to be considered.
Most arguments against systems requiring greater accountability suggest that the management overload would prevent good care. Costs are currently escalating out of control and presenting all but the wealthiest or those with amazing benefit packages with restrictive health care choices. Most plans ignore a call for healthy lifestyle choices as a component of reduced costs. Most plans ignore preventive care as a component for improved health and reduced cost. Most plans ignore health personnel shortages as increasing the likelihood of less care, no matter how much it costs. Rapidly rising numbers of older Americans will stress the present system because it has not “ramped up” for greater aging care needs.
One of the great weaknesses of American healthcare is the dysfunctional family systems that provide limited or poor support to family members. With extended life expectancy and reduced birth rates, those circumstances are further skewed in favor of less supportive environments.
We also share in a moral crisis at the point of recognizing the human limitations of medical practice. Our expectations have risen beyond reason. No physician can cure everything. No doctor should be expected to fix everything. Attempts to remedy every pain, every discomfort, every sadness or struggle is unhealthy in itself. Pain discloses the need for change. Pain reveals where there are problems. To eliminate pain may disguise that which is most debilitating.
Prescription drug abuse has grown to astounding levels. Sadly, those who abuse their bodies and neglect common sense measures to improve their health are among some of the most demanding for results. There is also a general societal inability to comprehend much of the complexity associated with present systems of medical service delivery. At the same time, there are those who use the system so routinely that they know how to abuse the system’s resources by undermining its weaknesses. Multiple doctors treating the same patient for the same ailment may not know of the others efforts. Similarly, without coordinated systems for tracking medicine dispensing, we overserve many to their detriment and frequently prolonged abuse.
Other looming problems are clear. Physicians are in short supply in the most needed areas. As one family physician recently complained…his patient appointments were 3 weeks out….it required a 3 week wait for someone to see their primary care physician. Many can die in 3 weeks in emergency situations. Others can be seriously affected in negative ways if improvements are not sought in less than a three week time.
Our present “backup” to this limitation is the excessively expensive emergency room visit. Yet even there, the triaged waiting room efforts require prolonged waits and often slow progress toward resolving matters as critical as strokes and as ordinary as playground cuts and scraps. When minutes can mean the difference between life debilitating aftereffects or a return to health… it matters.
Facilities responsible for dispensing health care are under extreme pressures to reduce costs while faced with personnel shortages that undermine patient care and create stress and overload for present workers. Where are hospitals getting nurses? Many are regularly enlisting nurses trained overseas where trained nurses are more available. We are losing the capacity to serve our own population with sufficient trained personnel. It takes a long time to train a capable doctor or nurse. It takes even longer for them to specialize. Such patterns of training are failing because of less than favorable working conditions and the high cost of education.
Chronic drains on the welfare system are the growing load of unwed teen mothers, often with limited access to prenatal care and low birth weight complications to newborns; likewise is the percentage of drug addicted mothers giving birth to drug addicted infants…is there any stronger case for better educational instruction and earlier intervention efforts? Why have we socially ignored the crippling effects of poverty and made medical care a vast field of attack for litigation…seeking to gain compensation and benefits through microanalysis of every medical procedure and its outcome. “Ambulance chasing” has become a by-word for our times. As difficult as it has been for some of my acquaintances to receive needed disability benefits, I struggle to understand how we can so easily attach a disability diagnosis without also working more uniformly as a nation to provide alternative work opportunities for willing workers with disabilities. Perhaps we are struggling enough enabling work for the physically able? We further destabilize our social fabric by creating a class society of the sick, diseased, and disabled supported by the overworked, overtaxed, and overextended.
Friends who check on one another regularly can be most instrumental in providing good health monitoring and good mental health. Engaging in caring for others can improve one’s own outlook on life significantly. Partnering with others to share abilities and using the strengths of a group to meet needs goes a long way toward positive living outcomes. Where we need the most work on healthcare is in our own backyards. Physical activity, a healthy diet…best shared while eating with others and enjoying the company and conversation of friends, a spiritual focus on the future, and an awareness of
God’s help and guidance….these factors go far toward improving health and our quality of life.
Let us not mistake the role of government -- that while able to encourage “best practices” with legislative efforts --- will never be able to dispense to all efficiently or effectively the essential care that must be provided in the context of caring communities of individuals who invest themselves in the lives of one another. Jesus said it best, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 19:19b NRSV)

Keeping Up

There is a phrase people often use…”keeping up with the Jones.” For most it is a somewhat sly remark implying that one is either attempting to “one up” someone else in terms of possessions or in some form of “showing off.” Keeping up with someone or some group has been a national pastime for quite a while. In fact, advertisers have been in the business for a very long time attempting to “create” your sense of need for something based upon their implied importance for having those things bringing you some never to be had “feeling” or “satisfaction.” Religious and spiritual language have often been used by such advertisers in the name of commercial endeavor. Often you would be invited to buy something to “bring good things to life.” At other times you were told you could experience something as “smooth, satisfying, and delicious” when it was “offensive, smelly, and life-threatening.” More often used were the subtle implications that having certain things would make you more acceptable. Brand names were marks of success. Logos on shirts or pockets meant you were “cooler” or more likely to succeed among your peers. The great “sell” has so often played to the emotions of the least secure individuals to convince them to buy something that would “improve” or “beautify” or make them more attractive to those of the opposite sex.
“Keeping up” has been a frustrating pursuit for all those who indulge in such rituals of behavior. Even if the “toys are gathered” those who have the most don’t win. They just have more broken toys in the end and sadly many have broken lives, distorted views of what is really valuable, and often a poor sense of their own self-worth.
God has sent his son, Jesus to inform us about so much of this. He told us to understand that God knows what we need. Having what we need, however, begins with looking first for God to be first in our lives. To know Jesus as your Lord marks the beginning of putting all the things of the world in the right perspective. It will also give you some wisdom about valuing other people in the way God values them. God’s love for each of us marks the fact that He wants all of us to know the blessings of his provision of eternal life through faith in Jesus. God invites us to understand that we are invited to share in the inheritance of heaven…the eternal and abundant life that begins when we look to him in faith and trust for our future. If we would be interested in helping our world keep up to speed on that good news…we would be doing what Christ has called his followers to be about.

Dispelling Distress

For some persons, stress is a way of life. Some measure of stress can be healthy…regular exercise strengthens body muscles. Exertion can be instrumental in some strengthening, but constant or repeated stress over time yields destructive consequences to the human body. The demands placed upon the body during long periods of stress can lead to neurological events, breakdowns in the natural renewal processes of the body best accomplished during rest and sleep cycles, and a wide variety of physical distresses that indicate a need for change. Stress induced illness has become a common denominator for many. Like soldiers in combat, those engaged in high demand work environments, and today’s relentless constant contact/constant work venues made possible via messaging, phones and computers keeps many individuals under severe stress.
Still other forms of distress plague many. Distress regarding jobs, or the lack of, complicates life for many. Economic difficulties, and changes that seemingly lie outside one’s control often bring difficult circumstances to be addressed. Even mistakenly adopted models for achievement can be stressors to a degree that inhibits or prevents positive performance outcomes. Some create stress for others because of their lack of responsiveness or apathetic attitude, when others depend upon them for measured success.
Distress is with us, or not, largely depending upon our capacities to relate to the circumstances we are facing. For far too many, the circumstances are not the source of distress, but rather the inability to consider appropriate ways to face those circumstances. Without imposing the mystic’s mantra or the Tibetan’s gong, let me suggest that most of us just need an honest look at ourselves that will help us to see that we need God’s help for life. We need the wisdom of our Creator to tackle the tangle of issues our world seems so frequently to struggle with. We need our Lord and Savior to show us how to relate to one another redemptively and with a heart of love that is motivated and inspired with the love that was first shown to us by Christ himself. We need to consider that often in our haste to meet our needs, we fail to see the needs of others and even more often fail to see that which would be pleasing to God for us to be doing.
Distress is what comes when we reap the consequences of our own refusal to follow Christ…in attitude and action. What kind of stress would it bring for us to love one another as Christ loved us? The only stress of that is the surprise generated in those to whom we show that kind of love. In that situation, distress gives way to discovery…and hope and joy and forgiveness and life and peace…you get the picture.
Before you reach for the analgesic, perhaps following Jesus’ lead would show you the way to better handle your daily challenges. Consider time listening and learning from Him. Enjoy a time of daily reading from the Gospels. Listen for the things Jesus taught us and put them into practice. It will go a long way toward rescuing a very stressed world.