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)