"A cheerful heart is good medicine..." [Proverbs 17:22]Thousands of years before modern medical science began, the placebo effect was recognized in the Bible. When it compounds the benefits of effective medications, good things happen. So to Susan, Terry, Brian, and anyone else with serious physical problems, keep on lifting your spirit in praise, and take courage!
I've been listening to the pontificating on C-SPAN as the House prepares to vote on Pelosi's health insurance (not health care) reform bill, and must conclude that some of our national politicians are ignoramuses themselves or they're intentionally pandering to an ignorant constituency.
Do the ignorant ones think that an insurance company is a stingy rich uncle with unlimited money and everyone can have anything they want if they can just convince the uncle to be more generous or if they can take the uncle's money by force of law?
Modern insurance works on one fundamental principal: Each insurance program must take in more money in premiums than it pays out in benefits. This is true regardless of whether the organization behind it is for-profit or non-profit, and certainly includes civil governments. Insurance is a means of allowing a group of people to share financial risk, not a magically infinite source of money.
Some have said, "We're making health care a right." Oh, really? You're going to make something with a price tag a civil right? You're going to put it on the same level as the right to life and the right to liberty? And what will you do when the well runs dry? And when the group of patients need two dollars worth of health care for every dollar paid in insurance premiums, what will you tell those who complain that their rights are being denied?
The truth is they're not talking about improving health care. They're talking about changing health insurance in a manner by which the civil government will control how health care is rationed, rather than allowing freedom of choice.
And some of these folks are claiming, with a straight face, that the Federal bureaucracy is going to cover hundreds of billions of dollars worth of the increased costs by making things more efficient and reducing fraud? Oh? Like they have with Veteran's health care, Medicaid, and Medicare?
Here's my two cents' worth of opinion: make the VA, Medicaid, and Medicare effective, efficient, and fraud-free, and then I'll have a basis to believe the Federal government can do a better job with public health insurance than the free market and non-profits are doing now.
Well, chalk up one more malady in my medical chart, add a problem I didn't even realize was a problem, and then cross that problem off the list.
During my annual physical a few weeks back, my doc asked me some questions no one ever asked before. My answers prompted more questions, and she began to suspect I might have exercise-induced asthma. I didn't know there was such a thing. I figured the trouble I've had breathing after running for a few minutes was normal. Those who know my history well know that there was a period of 20 years or so when my health was too poor to run, but I can clearly remember the same breathing problems while running in my twenties.
Well, Doctor Drew gave me an Advair sampler disk, which is an inhaler-gizmo with long-term anti-asthma drugs. She urged me to try it, and I did. Wow! What a difference!
Breathing is no longer my weak link while running... now it's my muscles, as it's probably supposed to be. So, despite my lungs not being fully recovered from the flu yet (it's dragging out a really long time), I'm running again and enjoying it even more than usual. What a blessing! Maybe I can finally start working on increasing speed or distance.
Breathing... I can personally recommend it!
Do you trust your doctor completely? When they're prescribing medication, you shouldn't. It's a lot of extra trouble, but if you want to do your best to make sure you're pursuing the best health you can, you should research everything you can about medications they prescribe. This article gives some good background on how marketing drives much of pharmacology industry, to the detriment of our health.
