Solution to Health Care

It seems every politician is getting on the "health care" bandwagon these days, and, frankly, I find it disturbing that none of them even know what the issue is - so how can they solve the problem?

We do not have a "health care" crisis - we have a "sick care" crisis. The problem is not the cost of getting well, or maintaining our health. The problem is that Americans are being made sick by aggressive businesses who are getting rich at the expense of our health.

Let's understand a couple of very important facts:

1) The natural state of health is good health. In most cases, and barring genetic disease, we only become ill when we become weakened by our own foibles and actions (or inactions).

2) The vast majority of the food that is made available to consumers is not food at all. It has little in the way of nutrients, and generally is loaded with chemicals, antibiotics, preservatives, growth hormones, and even petroleum products - all of which are toxic.

3) The water in most communities is polluted with flouride or chlorine - both are poisons.

4) Drug companies, doctors and hospitals do not want people to be cured of anything - they would all go bankrupt if the population were to regain their natural state of health. Instead, they only want to keep us from dying, and to help us to "maintain" life. As long as they can do that - keep us alive, and keep us coming back - only then do they profit. If they cure us, they can no longer dip into our pockets.

So, if we keep from getting sick in the first place, then health care would not be a problem, and would not be expensive at all. Therefore, the issue is not "how to pay for health care" so much as it is "how to eliminate the need for health care".

Anyone with a desire to solve the health care crisis in America need look no further than to improving food and water supplies, and to necessitate at least a minimal amount of exercise on a daily basis.

Our foods and our water should be natural and organic, free of pesticides, chemicals, hormones, antibiotics and petroleum products. Certainly, this would make food more expensive, but not nearly as expensive as the health care that becomes necessary because of all the poisons in our diet.

And we need to go back to the days when physical education was a requirement in school. And every business should set aside at least two 10 minute breaks for employees to get aerobic exercise of some sort - even if it is just walking, stair-climbing or jogging in place. Exercise should be encouraged.

And we need to re-learn how to eat. Man was designed as a forager - walking all day, seeking small amounts of food. Call it "grazing", if you will - there was no ready supply of "instant food" from the local supermarket. The fact is, the body can only use just so much fuel at any given time, so the body is most efficient when we fuel it as we use it. Isn't it obvious that if your body can only use 100 calories per hour, that if you eat a 1000 calorie meal, much of that will get stored as fat? What the body cannot use, it stores or excretes. For this reason, nature indicates that we can better achieve optimal health if we 1) eat natural foods, and 2) spread the eating throughout the day, in 4-6 small meals and snacks instead of "three square meals" that are just too big.

If any politician wants to solve the health care crisis, let him or her confront the real issue - making it easier to stay healthy in the first place!