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Growing up on the edge of the Amazon rain forest forms the back ground for a lot of my ideas and thoughts. Having a father and uncle who taught us to be upright and self reliant helped too. We were our own first responders, capable of taking care of any thing common such as a cold, a cut or a fever and even some of the more “exotic” situations such as amoeba, giardia, subcutaneous fly grubs, sand fleas, hookworm and hepatitis A – to name but a few of the things we came across. When a health issue would come we’d use common sense and do what we could to take care of it. Medicine was readily available over the counter at that time. For common problems we had no need of a doctor to tell us “You’ve got amoebas again, take flagyl every day for a week and you’ll get over it.” After you or a family member have had amoebas a few times you know the symptoms and the treatment. Why spend money on a doctor and a lab when they’ll just confirm the obvious? Of course if you’re in a place where the lab technician can’t ID an amoeba to save their soul and the doctor won’t trust your knowledge and the pharmacy won’t sell without a prescription – you’re in a bind. That happened to my mom one time. Soon after we hit the U.S. she came down with classic amoeba symptoms. I’ve no idea how much they spent on doctor and lab – but the lab never could come up with a diagnosis and the doctor wouldn’t prescribe based on another person’s (especially a non-medical professional) experience. So she suffered until she got back home to Brazil, walked into a pharmacy, bought the medicine and was well in a matter of days. We took personal responsibility for our health and actions and sought medical attention when something beyond our capabilities came up.

Back then, medical care was a private affair. You went to the doctor and paid your bill. He would diagnose and treat the illness according to his knowledge and skill. When we came upon a doctor who’s knowledge was inferior to ours – we didn’t go back. Even when the doctor wasn’t capable of treating a simple case of amoebas we never thought of suing him. We simply started taking medicine with us to the U.S. – just in case. And such has remained our practice over the years. Only now we will often visit a national doctor and obtain a prescription for the medicine so that we can satisfy the requirements of U.S. customs officials upon arrival there.

Now the U.S. is faced with a massive overhaul of the medical system. The problems with this are varied. People travel from all over the world to be treated in the U.S. – because the U.S. has one of the best health care systems in the world. The main problem is the cost associated with treatment there. And what drives the exhorbitant costs? Wages are a part – but not the larfest issue. The cost of litigation is one of the greatest problems. If someone is not happy with the results of their treatment, they sue for malpractice. That is why doctors will order all kinds of tests so that they can prove diligence in a court of law. A friend of mine recently underwent a long series of tests because his doctor noticed a spot on one of his lungs. Probable cause? Scar tissue from damage done years earlier. BUT there was a slight chanc of cancer so a long series of tests and procedures was undertaken to show that he had – scar tissue, the very thing his doctor’s experience and intuition indicated at the beginning. $40,000 dollars or so later and the doctor had prevented any chance of suing him IF by some fluke the scar tissue had proven to be a tumor instead.

The problem with the U.S. health system is the U.S. “justice” system.  We have become a nation that will sue at the drop of a hat, and drop the hat ourselves should we feel the need to sue. Gone are the days of personal responsibility.  Now it is always “someone else” who is to blame for anything that happens to us. The major problem is that we no longer have a strong judeo-christian foundation. That foundation laid for us by the Founding Fathers has been eroded by decades of concentrating on “Separation of Church and State”, castigating the Church and removing any base for moral and ethical teaching from our schools and society.  For decades we have been taught that there is “no absolute truth” – which is the only absolute that is allowed under modern education. We have instilled in our nation the idea that we have descended from apes and amoebas – and then wonder why folks act like animals.  The law of the jungle has overthrown the law of the land and the survival of the fittest means “looking out for number one” – to the extent of doing what ever it takes to “get one up” on the other guy.

Health care – does it need an overhaul?  People all over the world flock to the US when possible, because it is well known that we have the finest doctors and hospitals on God’s green earth.  If we truly want to improve the lot of the poor amongst us, we should work on overhauling our “justice system”, gutting current tort laws and returning common sense to the place it should have had all along.  People should once more be taught to take responsibility for their actions rather than taking it out on others when they goof up.  And YES that includes doctors, but we need to allow them the latitude necessary to exercise common sense when they treat us for illness and disease.