Health Tips for a Better Life

The world is a complicated place to navigate safely. There are many ways the land and sea can play you false with quicksand to take you down and rip tides to carry you away from shore. But people are where the most serious problems begin. Some are naturally friendly and accepting of difference, while others will be hostile if you do not share their beliefs. Over the centuries, religion has always been a force to separate groups into different armed camps. It’s not much better today whether you look at the current strife between Christianity and Islam, or come down to the local level and look at the discrimination based on what people believe. In many ways, the idea of improved health care services should have united everyone but, unfortunately, aspects of the Affordable Care Act have been hijacked by interest groups and disapproval of the parts has been used to blacken the reputation of the whole.

Let’s take the issues of contraception, sterilization and abortion. All three are a sin according to the Catholic Church yet, if a Catholic employer is mandated to offer a health plan to its employees, any insurance including these services would be immoral. According to the Church, you cannot be a good Catholic and offer your employees contraception and sterilization, let alone abortion. In fact, the Catholic employers would be paying for these services. Given the number of schools, hospitals and charitable organization run directly by the Catholic Church, this would be money paid out by the Church itself. But here’s the problem. Not everyone employed by a Catholic organization is a Catholic. In any event, many would argue that it’s for the woman to choose whether she wants access to services affecting her reproductive health, including abortion. It should not be for one group to impose its morality on another. If everyone is free to hold whatever beliefs they wish, it would be wrong of any employer to penalize one group of employees whose conscience permits them to access treatment considered necessary by their doctors.

We then get into a very difficult area. Suppose the employer is a Moslem and believes that the use of all stimulants is immoral. Should that employer be allowed to argue an exemption for the treatment of alcohol or drug addiction. The same might occur if the employer considered homosexuality sinful and so wished to deny treatment if an HIV infection developed. In states which allow termination at will, the employer could theoretically end the employment of anyone disapproved (subject to the laws of discrimination). That the same employer might be obliged to pay for health insurance cover promoting an immoral lifestyle or paying for treatment for the results of an immoral lifestyle is considered offensive by many.

What we believe can make it difficult for us to walk through life without upsetting others. So here’s the question. Neither religious belief nor abstract ideas of morality have the force of law. If we can opt in and out of obeying the law just because we happen to be a member of a group with a particular set of beliefs, this is a recipe for chaos. What treatment is sought under a group health insurance plan should be a matter of conscience for each individual.

The US healthcare system is often torn between conflicting forces. On a professional level, doctors are supposed to place the interests of their patients first. So, it is reasonable for the profession to respond to a shortage of proper pain management facilities in the hospital sector by establishing “pain clinics”. In theory, these clinics will provide short-term care with mixed teams of doctors, physical and psychological therapists, and nursing professionals able to counsel and advise people on how to manage their pain. Unfortunately, the medical profession is strongly for profit. It would be good if there was a major stream of altruism running through the modern ranks of healthcare professionals. Unfortunately, an increasing number of doctors are abandoning general practice in favor of employed status in clinics and hospitals. This gives stability of earning with the least possible work commitment. It also enables the management to run their facilities to generate the most income from the lowest cost base. Thus, the reality of many pain clinics is they are “pill mills”, i.e. their main function is to supply people with every possible painkiller with the least possible time spent in expensive face-to-face contact between doctors and the people. Such clinics are characterized by long queues of people waiting to see a doctor to collect prescriptions. Doctors are on a quota target to see a minimum number of patients every day. This maximizes the claims to the health insurers by the volume of people seen. For those not on a health plan, it is a cheap consult system since no treatment is involved.

This is not to deny that some clinics are attempts to offer a professional service to those in genuine need. But such beacons of light are few and far between. How do we know this? Because there is an explosion in the number of pain clinics opening across America. In some areas, the local government is trying to control the problem. At least, there are political calls for the profession to rein in these fast prescription services. At best, there are local bans on the approval of new clinics. Sadly, the lobbying power of the medical profession means there are very few state-wide limits either on the establishment of clinics or on the practice of writing prescriptions for hundreds of pills at a time. Some local politicians are proposing ordinances to prohibit clinics from prescribing pain medication except in emergency situations and then only offering a 72-hour refill, expecting the individuals to return to their regular doctors for proper care. Their chances of being able to control the problem are slim without the support of state governments and the medical profession.

This is a tragic situation. There is a real need for professional pain management services at both a local and county level. Unfortunately, the medical profession is exploiting the public and feeding their growing addiction to pain medications. People, being practical, take pain relief in whatever form is available. If that means endless supplies of drugs, they take it. The best practice standards in other countries with public healthcare services does provide mixed teams of pain management specialists who focus on training people to cope using only low level painkillers. For example, they are allowed to buy tramadol. Because the higher labor costs are absorbed by the taxpayers, a significantly better service results. Because tramadol is not habit-forming to the same degree as more powerful drugs, this is a safer system for managing pain.