Health Insurance Myths and Assumptions

Stephen B. Groton

[Warning: If you want and need health insurance, I will be happy to help you with it. Obviously I make money from it. In the statements below I am relating my observations on the nature and state of health, insurance and the medical-pharmaceutical industry. The disclosures below may seem controversial and may not make you want to buy health insurance from me but are, I feel, necessary both from a professional and personal standpoint of caring for you, my fellow human being, regardless of whether you do business with me or not.]

The first myth is the term Health Insurance. Health and Insurance have nothing to do with each other. That is the first thing I tell my clients when they inquire about health insurance. Health is the physical state of the body specifically without illness, injury or defect. It has to do with diet, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, self-education, rest, mental and spiritual well-being with a small smattering of genetics and environment.

The state of being healthy is characterized by not being sick, being able to fend off illness, and if sick or ill, rapid recovery. In a state of health you (which is to say your mind, body, spirit - whatever you consider to be You) are killing bacteria and viruses, healing bones and tissue and cleaning house continuously. That's health. It is a completely different subject from Medicine, which merely treats ill health, or Insurance, which simply pays for the treatment. Neither medicine nor insurance cause health. The best that medicine can do for you is to kill symptoms or put Humpty-Dumpty back together again, approximately, after an accident, but it's up to you (body, mind, spirit) to heal. You cannot produce much health with the tools of medical treatment: scalpels, petrochemicals and radiation.

The second myth is that doctors and drugs cure you. Really? Then why don't you see doctors hanging out shingles saying: "Come here and I will cure you"? Because with any treatment, even the simplest and most routine, things can go horribly wrong and medical practitioners don't know why. There is a lot they don't know. Hundreds of thousands of people die annually from misdiagnoses, wrong drug applications, correct drug applications that have unanticipated results, unnecessary surgery as well as plain old doctor-screwed-it-up. What cures you? Look in the mirror. After the physical trauma of surgery, for instance, when you have been cut apart and sewn back together, the body heals itself, usually, hopefully, mostly and miraculously. When treatment is successful, doctors look very proud as if they performed a miracle of modern medical science. When it isn't successful they shrug their shoulders, say that they did all they could, assert that their profession is medical practice, not science, and then check to see if their malpractice insurance is current.

The third myth is the term Healthcare. When you buy health insurance you are not getting healthcare; there is no Healthcare System in this country. There is an Accident, Illness and Disease Treatment Industry. It is a profit-taking industry, as profit-taking as the auto industry or banking industry or any other industry, and it gets paid for treatment, not cures and not health. Actually they are paid for sickness and ill health. Their treatments involve, almost entirely:

1. Toxic petrochemical based drugs (95% or more of pharmaceuticals are petrochemical based)
2. Extremely sharp tools for cutting bodies (invasive surgery which creates its own physiological trauma), and
3. Radiation.

The fourth myth is that everyone needs health insurance. No. Everyone needs health. If you are sick or injured, a hospital or emergency room must treat you. There are clinics in most communities that will treat you. You have a great deal more control over your health than medical profiteers would have you believe. Who really needs health insurance? Those who have assets need insurance. Those who own homes and businesses and have salaries that can be seized in a lawsuit must have health insurance. The largest single cause of bankruptcy is medical bills engendered by medical treatment. If you get ill or injured you will be treated and those who treat you want to get paid and if you don't have insurance or the cash to pay them then those who treat you will come after your assets.

With those few concepts in mind I generally recommend not spending a lot on health insurance but getting a high deductible policy for as cheap as possible and investing your money and time in health, particularly the spiritual and mental part. See the article on Health.