Brock: What’s missing in health care debate? Health!
Fulton Brock
Fulton Brock represents District 1 on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
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Accuracy posted at 9:16 am on Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
Fulton Brock’s do’s and don’ts questions:
Do you smoke? Do you consume too many needless calories? Do you drink alcohol to excess? Drive too fast or while distracted? Do you get enough daily exercise? Do you drink enough water? Are you coping well with stress in your life?
Health! In other words take care of your heart…before it’s too late.
Smoking impacts every organ in the body. Heart disease is the number one thing, and lung disease (not necessarily lung cancer) is very common. The breathing makes asthma a lot worse and smoking actually increases your chances for bladder cancer and throat cancer and skin cancer, not just the cancer of the lungs.
The more sleep one gets, the better it is for their mental health. The sad fact is, even if you don’t die from heart failure or a stroke, you may suffer for years feeling sick, weak, and chronically worried. Fear alone makes every heart condition much worse.
DrJCA1 posted at 9:52 am on Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
America is the land of victims and blamers. In the 40 years I was in practice, well over 75% of my patients were there due to the choices they made in lifestyles, not because of genetic (family) influences. I spent many hours trying to educate them as to the correlation between their choices and their health. Some listened, but most did not. I find it interesting that those making the worst lifestyle selections are the most vocal in demanding the government pay for all their bad choices.
No one FORCES anyone to drink alcohol, use drugs, smoke, speed, not use seatbelts, weave in and out fo traffic lanes, or tailgate, overeat, or not exercise. Every one of these things are decisions made by individuals on a daily basis. Sadly, all this new technology adds to the problems. We have a generation of kids that eat fast food every day while sitting in front of the TV, video game console, or computer for hours at a time. Obesity among teens and younger kids is at an astronomical high. do you think these children will grow up healthy? How much do you think taking care of all of them will cost over the next half century?
Katydid52 posted at 10:22 am on Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
DrJ, the issues you bring up are the ones so many of us have become fed up with.
Why shouldn't health care premiums mirror car insurance premiums? People who get tickets and have wrecks pay more than a safe driver. Why are my insurance premiums based on my age and gender only? That means I pay the same rate as the other 54 year-old women that eat whatever they want, are 100 lbs overweight, drink, and never gets off the sofa.
But, then we have become so obnoxiously PC, taxpayers are not allowed to have any input about where their money goes. We are not helping people by giving them everything they need with no accountability from them, with no efforts to change their situation. We are creating an entire subculture of people who are never becoming adults. They rely on the government like a Mommy who takes care of you forever.
az2008 posted at 11:24 am on Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
DrJ & Katy: You're both arguing personal responsibility for choices made. A "marketplace" of choices and consequences. However, don't we lack such choices within the healthcare industry?
Essentially, a monopoly exists which sets standards for products and services higher than willing buyers and sellers would freely negotiate between each other. I say "monopoly" because the criteria for licensing doctors, pharmacists and hospitals is defined by state boards populated with doctors, pharmacists and healthcare administrators who are members of the same national groups (for example, JCAHO for hospital accreditation, or NABP for pharmacists.
On the one hand, it's obviously better to have licensing of pharmacists performed by pharmacists instead of plumbers. But, this obviously leads to an incestuous relationship where the experts can engage in protectionism. For example, requiring a Pharm.D degree rather than a mere 4-year degree and passage of an competency exam (as it used to be, to earn the title of Rph.).
Obviously we stand a greater chance of receiving higher standard of care from someone who attended 6-8 years of school than 4. But, this obviously comes at a cost. Nothing in this world comes for free, and those pharmacy students who now must spend additional years in school, paying additional tuition have to make up the difference through salary. (Or, through decreased competition for their jobs, as those willing to attend 4 years drop out of the pharmacy field.).
I'm using pharmacy as an example, but the same could be said for doctors and hospital accreditation.
If you're going to advocate for market-style choices and consequences, maybe you should start with the industry itself. Maybe we should have competing accrediting agencies, allowing consumers to balance their wants and needs (quality of service versus predictability of outcome). Maybe we should have alternate organizations to the AMA, JCAHO and NABP. If I can't afford "the best healthcare in the world" I could elect to visit a doctor licensed to the standards of the NMA (hypothetical National Medical Association), and receive services in a hospital accredited/monitored by the RCAHO (hypothetical Regional Commission).
Usually, this is when the cries begin: "Oh no, we can't have confusion in the marketplace. It would be anarchy, choosing among a variety of standards and licensing systems." Which means simplicity and predictability trump market-style choice and lower costs.
So, where do you both stand? Are you arguing for market-style choice and consequence -- while protecting what is essentially a government-backed monopoly?
chatmandu002 posted at 12:53 pm on Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
Personal responsibility, something that is out of style now. It's all about being dependent on the big government to take care of you and make your decisions.
az2008 posted at 2:30 pm on Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
Chatman, Personal resp. seems to be wanting others to be responsible while we enjoy the benefits of things like building codes, zoning laws, food & drug safety. Those who argue for personal responsibility are usually the last ones to say that it should be our personal responsibility to buy enough land to protect the use of our property from our neighbor's use. Instead, they like zoning laws which limit how your neighbor can dispose of her property. Nobody wants to buy 40 acres as a buffer. But, nobody wants their neighbor to convert her home into a late-night biker bar either. (Presto: zoning laws are more desirable than personal responsibility.).
It's like my prior example about the healthcare monopoly. If I have "willing buyers" of my healthcare services, I'll go to jail for practicing medicine without a license. If I and some like-minded individuals decide to dispense legend drugs (relatively safe medicine) without a prescription because we believe our customers don't need to be protected from themselves, we'll go to jail. You know who writes those laws? The boards of medicine and pharmacy, staffed by doctors and pharmacists, producing recommendations to legislators to protect what is essentially a monopoly through criminal public law.
The result is hugely expensive healthcare whose costs grow at a rate far faster than inflation. As a result, I may not be able to see a doctor. I may go without care because I'm being protected from "unsafe alternatives" (which pass as ordinary care in other countries). And then, when I eat potato chips and Whoppers, I'm criticized for making the wrong choices!
I don't see how people can have it both ways. They want to preserve the status quo (a state-created monopoly), insisting "socialized" medicine is wrong (when the monopoly exists through the power of society).
They want people to feel the effect of their choices (which may be a direct result of having less contact with healthcare providers). But, they don't want to open up those choices so people can access what they can afford.
samkat posted at 7:54 pm on Sat, Sep 29, 2012.
Unfortunately, adequate health care should start with the basics. We need to reinstate healthcare as a basic part of our educational process. We have far too many parents these days who lack such parenting skills and the public education system is one of the best tools for achieving this goal. Heck, since basics like teeth brushing is probably foreign to many of our poorer children. Issuing tooth brushes and tooth paste should be made available. Although the flat earth conservatives will undoubtedly disagree, we need to reinstate school nurses and let them make basic health decisions for our children. Teaching basic health education to our children at the earliest point in our educational process would have far reaching consequences.
Also, making innoculations mandatory unless a child has valid health reasons should be required. We are unfortunately seeing the resurgence of diseases that we had previously virtually wiped out. Now, the liberals are going to rip me but most of it is the result of the heavy influx of illegals over the past few years. Couple that with the idiot parents who restrict their children from being immunized and we are reaching epidemic levels.
downtownresident posted at 11:15 am on Sun, Sep 30, 2012.
Thanks for the lesson in morality. How are the wife and daughter doing?
onerebel posted at 1:39 pm on Sun, Sep 30, 2012.
So downtownresident are you saying WE should ALL be responsible for the bad choices of others? Or are just saying you don't like morals? Just asking for clarification.
JMJ posted at 2:40 pm on Sun, Sep 30, 2012.
Mr. Brock: Have you ever heard the question, "Physician, Heal Thyself?"
Advice from you about health--or anything else--is falling on, well, deaf ears, here. [beam]
Heal thyself.
Engaged Voter posted at 3:23 pm on Mon, Oct 1, 2012.
Onerebel, downtownresident's comment doesn't address your issues.
What I believe he is saying is that ignorant, immoral shysters like Fulton Brock have no place trying to impose their "morality" on the rest of us.
You DO know about Fulton Brock, right? Let's take the latest about him right from the headlines - "County Supervisor Fulton Brock Lied to Police About Knowing of Wife's Sexual Abuse of Teenage Boy, Report Shows"
Engaged Voter posted at 4:01 pm on Mon, Oct 1, 2012.
So Fulton Brock committed perjury when he lied to police...and he committed this crime in Maricopa County.
Where's chatmandu002 and his mantra "enforce all the laws all the time"?
Or has the message changed to "enforce all the laws except when a rich Mormon politician is involved"?
onerebel posted at 4:07 pm on Mon, Oct 1, 2012.
AH Yes, now I remember. Wow downtownresident went straight for a knee to the guys groin on that one didn't he. [wink]
Engaged Voter posted at 5:30 pm on Mon, Oct 1, 2012.
I don't think "knee to the groin" applies when holding someone accountable for their own immoral actions. He made his bed, now he can lie in it.
downtownresident posted at 3:29 pm on Tue, Oct 2, 2012.
Let us not forget Fulton's "church" has to share the blame, too. Of course, they will deny any knowledge, too. So much for honesty, ethics and morals.
Engaged Voter got close enough to my point.