What would happen if every time we went to a barbershop or
hair salon we had to pay a fee at the door to enter. Then, we'd sit in a
waiting room to be called. A few folks are called in and come out looking
smashing so we figure it's worth the wait. Five o'clock rolls around and an
announcement is made to everyone still waiting. Time to close. Please come back
and try again.
Eventually this repeated pattern might get us a hair cut or
might not. We pay our fee every time we walk in the door and accept the procedure and leave, confident that on some special
occasion we will come back and eventually get our hair cut. But some people
don't. Since everyone else willingly pays the fee, we accept this scenario as
normal.
Is this a world you read about in a horror story? No! This
is the equivalence of our American medical model.
You enter a doctor's office and the first thing the person
at the front desk does is take your insurance card. You are going to be charged
for an office visit. You can see the doctor, talk about your health issues,
have blood labs analyze your blood (all for additional charges to your
insurance company) but you were charged upfront... before you see your doctor.
Your doctor may give you advice that heals your illness or not. Some folks
might leave looking healthier and many don't. You are given the opportunity to
come back another time, often for the same medical problem and an additional
charge. Your doctor gets paid whether or not he heals you.
Do you see a the problem here? As long as in America, top
priority falls on financial gain this is the only procedure we have mastered when
it comes to our medical industry. We have become experts at finding ways to
extract money for doing nothing.
Now, what if your doctor was paid only after he healed your
illness or you were satisfied that he tried sufficiently? Perhaps he discovered
that you have a genetic deficiency and there is no possible way to change the
outcome of your state of health. Maybe a preventative course of behavior is put
into place and when you follow it, you become healthy or perhaps a procedure is
performed and the aliment completely goes away. What if these were the only
instances in which an invoice could be presented? With a signed seal of
approval that the results of the work (haircut) produced a good change (a
snazzy new do!) We are more than willing to pay a fee. If, on the contrary, a
doctor let you simply sit it out (or failed to address the root cause your
illness and decided to simply managed it as it progressed in lieu of a cure),
no invoice could be sent.
I believe there would be a lot less sick folks sitting it out in
the waiting room.
What other American industries are adopting this "pay
for nothing" (or maybe
something) way of doing business? Another industry that comes to mind is
politics, where people work for our government and get paid regardless of their
contribution. Yup. no haircut there but we pay an embarrassing amount out to
these folks up front.
I understand that occasionally our medical industry causes
someone to be cured and our politicians make good decisions from which we the
people can benefit. But I believe we are going down a path here and need a
turnabout. The instances of cure or good government action need to once again
become the front runners of our American society. A lot has to change in order
for this to happen.
Our American Presidential Election is coming up next year. A
plethora of candidates on one side of our political party line has surfaced. A
few on the other side are touting their platform goals. Our job, as the people
is to listen to what these candidates have to say and vote to put them in a
place where their expertise can be used to help get us out of prioritizing
financial gain over everything else before it starts happening in other
industries.
Our job is to hire a candidate who will lead America away
from the greed and prejudice that supports unhealthy economic and societal
practices such as the examples I gave above. Our citizens,
the workers, business owners and families in America need to come first to
these newly hired politicians. The human aspects of government need to be
taught and learned all over again. Career politicians who can't change their
way of thinking have to go.
We need to stop the practice of paying for a haircut and
getting either none or a very bad one by changing and curtailing laws put in
place for this very sinister purpose.
A political candidate who gets this, as espoused in this
political platform is running for the office of President in America in the 2016
Presidential election. He is Senator Bernie
Sanders from Vermont. I urge you to do some research on this candidate, find
out what he stands for and take a look at how he has stood up for the human
values and needs of his constituents for almost three decades.
We can fix our American medical industry and return to
better health and our government system and return to a better balance so we
get what we pay for and change the priorities of how we invest our pooled tax
money. We can do this simply by voting.
I urge you to consider a democratic vote in the future and a
vote for Bernie Sanders for President.
