How Do We Stay Healthy When Illness Equals Profit?

in life •  7 years ago  (edited)


We trust our healthcare system to help us when we are injured and sick to get us back on our feed. Medical professionals like doctors, nurses, and the armies of support staff do miracle work each day saving lives from fixing broken bones to providing helpful medical advice and treating disease.

At the same time, we live in a capitalistic system where profit equals growth. For our healthcare system, the fast path to profit is chronic illness requiring frequent doctor's visits, expensive treatments, and medications that cost almost nothing to produce while being sold often at a massive profit.

How do we stay healthy when illness is so profitable? What works to interact with our medical system in a way that helps us increase our quality of life without getting funneled into a diagnosis that then starts a cycle of downward health spiraling?

Today I talk with Bonnie from Billing Buddies at http://www.billingbuddies.com/ and Don from https://www.donself.com/ in this video interview uploaded to DTube which we hope will leave you saying "Thank God I saw that!"


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Talking with Bonnie and Don helps me stay centered in remembering our healthcare system is full of good people trying to help alongside the capitalistic goals of growth which sometimes promotes profit at any cost because Bonnie and Don both help doctors maintain profitable businesses. We conclude that education is critical to help us develop and maintain a prevention mindset especially through diet and nutrition which we have control over today instead of thinking our diet has no consequences and that diseases can only be addressed through medical treatment.

Don reminds us that Medicare pays for Annual Wellness visits to our doctor which can help us feel good about our health and identity problems well enough in advance for prevention to work. For doctors, reminding patients of this visit is an opportunity to build a relationship based on prevention, increase referrals, and generate positive reviews online.

I am excited Bonnie and Don are planning to read the book "How Not To Die" by Michael Greger, M.D. as seen at https://nutritionfacts.org/book/ which helped me to lose weight, feel better every day, and believe that eating mostly whole plant foods is preventing the top 15 causes of my death from occurring!

Thank you for experiencing this interview with us! When you would like us to follow up with more discussion on the details of what we talked about here, would you please leave a comment with ideas for our next call because your feedback will help us know how to best serve you in the next video we produce?

Love,
Jerry Banfield


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I often think about this sort of thing because I am fascinated by incentives and how simply changing one's incentives can produce a radical change in behavior. What you've laid out here is a perfect example of incentives being misaligned.

Great post as always @jerrybanfield.

@brandonp thank you for reading, commenting, and upvoting with us here! Your positive feedback here is what motivates me to make Steem a priority each day and helps me think what can I do to help the most!

I appreciate you also making a witness vote for me at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because your witness vote helps indefinitely to fund projects growing Steem via @budgets!

Also, I think having a positive attitude each day, learning how to "breathe" (we forget sometimes!) thru those super stressful moments, much plant-based diet like you said, healthy supplements (as opposed to meds if you can), yoga/exercise, letting go of anger, prayer and lots of GRATITUDE for every moment and challenge! I also drink at least 1 tsp. of apple cider vinegar a day w/water. I haven't had a cold in a few years!

I agree with you.

One solution regarding changing incentives would be to shift the industry thinking that illness is profitable over to the idea that health is profitable. If we could structure healthcare so that doctors made more money keeping you well, we would see a big improvement.

Agreed @geke especially when we see that health is much more profitable for us as an entire society!

@geke thank you for being one of the first to comment on this post and for upvoting it because this is part of how I know that showing up here each day is useful!

I see you have voted for 27 witnesses so far at https://steemit.com/~witnesses and not make a vote for me yet! Will you please add me to your list of witness votes because your witness vote for me will help fund additional projects to grow Steem via @budgets?

Exactly. I couldn't agree more. That's the exact way to do it. Shift the incentives.

thanks a lot @jerrybanfield for all your post and your info it help us so much i like your idea ,, ((( resteem ))) up vote

You can take me, but you cannot take my bunghole.... For I have no bunghole....

@futurelifee thank you very much for following me today and resteeming 3 of my posts today! I just followed you and am excited you are doing so much on Steem in your first 20 days here!

I see you have not voted for any witnesses at https://steemit.com/~witnesses yet. Witness votes are the most important we make on Steem because witnesses create our blockchain in real time and are our chosen community leaders. The easiest way to fully participate is to choose one person we trust as a "proxy" to make all of our witness votes for us. Would you please set me as your proxy at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because this will empower you to indefinitely support me for witness and increase the funding for @budgets?

I have done that I wish that I can be like you
Your doing great on steemit and i just start with it I will follow ur all ur post

I have a friend who works over 60 hours a week.
Loves what he does he runs his own business but the guy drinks heavily every. single. day.
When we try to get him to take it easy he just tells us that in a few years he can just buy a new liver loooool wtf

Thanks for this amazing video, it's really motivating to take more care about our health. We have to stop losing our money to buy this medicaments and stop sopporting the useless medical system that is made just to make profit from people. My wife is vegan and I try to support her by eating just vegan food at home and that helps a lot to stay healthy, she just joined steemit recently and here she will write about veganism in Russia and veganism generally because she is reallly true vegan and she really care about animals a lot. You can read her blog here : @steemitbaby .

She also likes you so much Jerry because she sees that you are vegan also, it makes me love you much more because my dear love also love you, you are doing very well, I wish you the best. ☺

Many health insurance company's provide incentives to the subscribers for taking preventive action. My insurance reimburses for 3 months of gym membership fees! Be sure to check out what benefits your policy provides.

how to stay healthy when illness equals profit? well for me, being healthy is equals more time and money being saved and that will lead to happier and longer life expectancy @jerrybanfield.
good quality post as always..thank you!

@dimas-alfaruq yes! I appreciate you for being one of the first to comment on this post and for upvoting it because this is part of how I know that showing up here each day makes a difference!

I see you have voted for 22 witnesses so far at https://steemit.com/~witnesses and not make a vote for me yet! Will you please add me to your list of witness votes because your witness vote for me will help fund additional projects to grow Steem via @budgets and help me represent your interests in our community?

Hi @jerrybanfield, thank you for taking the time to reply. Even though I have voted 22 witnesses, I don´t know really what it means:D..can you explain a bit about it? and yes I can make you my witness
and I would also appreciate if you could help me grow by following my account or my posts? thank you

When wealth is lost nothing is lost, health is lost something is lost, but when morality lost, everything is lost.

Health is all that matters! Money can be made back, and only buys temporary things.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Nice post Mr @jerrybanfield

wow awesome post @jerrybanfield

Only the educated will thrive... and our society crushes education / nuff said

@clumsysilverdad thank you very much for being one of the first to comment and for including me as one of your 26 witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because your vote is helping to indefinitely raise more funding for projects intended to grow our community here via @budgets!

As someone who also works in this environment, I must say I agree. This system needs to have another approach, one where prevention is the most important matter. Often the doctors are teached how to deal with a person that has a disease, but dedicate little to no time in helping them to avoid that people gets sick. And this has many benefits, from wherever point of view you see it.

It has the obvious benefits for the person who doesn't have to suffer an illness that could deteriorate their quality of life. And we all know that being healthy helps you to be more focused and productive. Also, as you already mentioned, it helps them to save money that in the case of chronic diseases or grave illness, could be a great amount of it. Besides, there are places where the access to medicaments it's very unequal and they have to resort to unusual ways to access to them or when it's very difficult, they don't purchase them at all. And in some cases, this is the reason of why some illness become chronic.

Nonetheless, the Health System could take advantage of this, too. I'm going to give my opinion based in how is it in my country (Venezuela), where at the moment, we're struggling to be able to assist the amount of people that visits the medical centers day by day. If we would focus more in promoting healthy life styles and regular visits to the doctors, the amount of emergencies would be lesser and the way the doctors could take care of them would definitely be more efficient.

It's a win-win situation, even when I'm sure some pharmaceutical companies would not agree with me. Anyway, I believe prevention is the future of medicine.

Thanks for sharing!

@hayleeng thank you very much for your long comment, your upvote and following me today because this motivates me to make more videos and posts like this one.

I see that as a new user on Steem you have already voted for 1 witness at https://steemit.com/~witnesses, but did not make a vote for me yet! Will you please add me to your list of witness votes because it will help fund additional projects to grow Steem via @budgets?

Of course, I'll do it right away!

thanks for your support to us the little fish

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Yeah, illness = profit most likely.
I guess my recommendation to health is as simple as balance.
eating fasting.jpg
I guess most people are not aware of this. We only most of the time know/knew the word 'eating'. The word 'fasting' sounds alien to us. A lot of things to search and study on fasting. The popular one maybe not to some is intermittent fasting. I won't go deeper into this. There are a lot more about fasting stuffs to learn from.

Most cultures are already cultured on their scheduled time on eating. Time for breakfast, time for snacks, time for lunch, time for snacks, time for dinner. We are/were becoming slaves of our time. We don't even listen to our body, if its expanding or purging.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" A food industry slogan?
Even the word 'breakfast' obviously violates the law of fasting. Breakfast means breaking the fast, that's why its called breakfast.

Fasting is traditional, ancient, an old thing. But, in the process, its evolving. There are a lot of varieties to study/learn on fasting.

Anyways, thanks @jerrybanfield for posting up a good health insights.
More power!

I recently had to take a trip to the ER when I did some damage to my knee. They gave me an Ace bandage, an ibuprofen and some xrays. I was charged $3,000. Unfortunately I'm not employed or have insurance so this really hurts. I still need to get an MRI and most likely surgery but can't go forward until I can figure out this financial mess. It shouldn't be this difficult to get help in America. Getting injured is a privilege only for the wealthy in this country.

You spelt "feet" as "feed" @jerrybanfield.

Hi Jerry, this is a very very important topic! People are not incentivised to live healthy! And the healthcare system focuses on short time profits. You might also find Colin T. Campbell interesting:


Keep up your postings to this topic! I have also voted for you as a steem witness.
Cheers!

With all those tips, i will be able to be healthy. Thanks.

nice Jerry Banfield,,,,

Thank God i saw this indeed!

Congratulations @jerrybanfield!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:

  • Upvotes - Ranked 4 with 668 upvotes

This is why a NHS type system is inevitable for America. Healthcare does not work as a rational capitalist market place. You need to have a system in place where we all pay together to form a non-profit healthcare sector that values patient health above all. You will never achieve optimal results when the consumers and suppliers of healthcare have vastly different motives.

Very much informative!
Thanks.

  ·  7 years ago Reveal Comment
  ·  7 years ago (edited)

@Jerrybanfield i'm your fan and started to watch your videos a month ago. I'm trying to learn about fb ads etc and in return, i gave you a WITNESS Vote. Keep sharing

jerry.JPG

Best of the best

Wow. Nice one. Thanks for sharing this.

Health is Wealth.

I have something about health that you may love to read here
https://steemit.com/health/@udembahenry/unknown-health-benefits-of-drinking-water. Thanks

I like to see your valuable post & thanks to share this content with us.

it's important to invest also to our health...

That very usefull information , i didnt knew that something like this exists ! I might really consider buying the book "How not to die" if its not only for USA .

Well apart from dieting I want to add exercise... Exercise helps a long way to keep the body system in good shape

Americans must strive to get more money to cover there butts in case of medical costs. There is benefits of course to the system, it is the most innovative and growing in the world because of the profit capitalist system.

Have a great week!
Steem on,
Mehram

There needs to be another social program to help more people in need. Unfortunately Americans must strive to get more money to cover there butts in case of medical costs. There is benefits of course to the system, it is the most innovative and growing in the world because of the profit capitalist system.

we'll stay healthy, as long as we keep common sense!!!!! 😅

to be healthy
-eat a balanced diet
-always be happy
-stay relaxed
then you will find the ultimate comfy of health :)

wow !
nice blog

thanks for your good advice.carry on

Nice blog man keep it up

This is absolutely great @jerrybanfield

nice blog about health and life
guys i want to be a dtuber but how can i do

Konten yang sangat bagus @jerrybanfield, sangat berguna utuk saya, terimakasih

It's quite sad that medication costs a lot and often causes problems for elderly people with low income in the first place.

It is interesting how the whole system works. Dr's are paid to get and keep us healthy, but healthy people don't make the medical industry revenue. We walk a tight rope in the United States because of the fact that the medical industry is so profitable and lucrative, talent and brain power is attracted to those professions. If the profit and lucrative nature is removed from the industry, the talent will follow the money to the profession that provide the best return for their educational expense.

Looks amazing man your post very nice I like it
Thank you for sharing bro so please vote later 👏👍👆

Good exercise and sound sleep do help alot. I tried watching the video but my network is bad.i will try to watch it later

posting is very useful for health

that science is expensive.gak can diperjual belikan.tapi must be sought
@jerrybanfield

In Croatia, the health system is free. As a doctor I try to help steemit community to learn something about diseases because I know that in some countries its to expensive to visit a doctor and google search is not good :)

Well written article, the best thing to do is to avoid living unhealthy life style. Good diet is the key.

Interesting interview...
So in totality which is most profitable?
Health or illness?
@jerrybanfield clarify sir

What is all the money in the world if you don't have good health? The medical industry has failed us through and through, healthy people do not equal big bank accounts. Almost all of Western medicine focuses on treating illnesses after the fact. More money needs to be put into preventative medicine if we truly want to help people live healthier, fuller lives.

A great podcast that explores this issue is the Freakonomics Podcast I highly recommend giving at least one of the episodes where they discuss bad medicine, a listen. Good post JB
tip!

Excellent job

well we are not fine at all with the steem get so weak today

Better to be healthy. Health is the wealth
-cheers-

Nice post. It is really hard to go looking for "help" at a medical facility. Just the idea that the surely "know" enough to help...so they will find something wrong. Next thing you know you have a pill caddy and little hope. 😔 I am glad you had a better experience.

Thank you Jerry. Nice seeing topics of value such as health discussed openly on steem.

nice friend pots @jerrybanfield I like your post I hope someday you can open my post @putra.arjun

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All this makes me think that there is a definitive cancer cure that capitalism hides as well as hide the great benefits of natural medicines. HERE THE IMPORTANCE OF A HEALTHY LIFE

thanks for blog about How do we stay Healthy When Illness .

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Jerry, you are writing articles almost about every topic :) and each of them high quality! Thank you!

Nowadays illness and its treatments are one of the most profitable businesses in the world, if that way is changed, then everything will be changed in a good way.

not hard to do.

health is the most important, unfortunately not all public health systems are optimal, so it is usual to resort to private systems in search of better care but at a high cost; but human sensitivity can not be lost for the money

well I'll watxh the video right way but,I would say thank God I read this.

Great post, and i couldn't agree more. I'm in healthcare and it's shocking sometimes how little is known about "wellness" compared to physiology, pharmacology, etc. Hopefully this will change...

The issue (apart from capitalism) is that medical knowledge was empirically established by trying novel (and reactive) treatments on very sick people and seeing what happened over time. A lot of medicines/surgical procedures work to help people escape dire pain and suffering; these have been established because it is a lot easier to measure these effects objectively.

It is a lot harder to measure and control for the little lifestyle modifications (that surely have benefits for many) in a objective study that convinces skeptics and allows them to confidently prescribe such measures with the knowledge that it is going to benefit the patient in a defined way. This is further muddled by individual variations at every level from epigenetics to vascular anatomy.

Our perfect hindsight is so bittersweet.

Lovely

Amazing.. I couldn't agree more that healthy...
Thank you...

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Start the year with a healthy routine :)...Stay healthy ya'll 2018 :))

healthy1.gif

Wow! thanks for this costly health tips you brought to our door step free of charge .may God give you more inspiration to affect our life in a new dimension in jesus name

u have a great information bro, thanks for sharing

Education is of course important. But I have seen more educated fools than the number of idiots who are not blessed with education. I'm from India and what can you guess lol. Followed you :)

You may want 2 look at your first sentence "feed" .....

How Do We Stay Healthy When Illness Equals Profit? -
By learning and learning and learning, and thinking and realizing
and consciousness and not being a sheep, and not believing in bullshit. And also by taking responsibility for your own health, not waiting someone to tell you what is right for you, because only you can know that.

Dearest @jerrybanfield, thank you for always post about necessary subjects! 🌟

I am personally very interested in health, and how we can get better from sickness. It is also incredible how food can change our health, body, mind and our human being. The book "How Not To Die" by Michael Greger, M.D sounds very interesting! and I heard his trailer on the internet you linked to. I am happy that you found this helpful, and maybe I should also buy this book!😃

Health is Wealth. I just used u my heath insurance for the year 2017. I am also thinking that yes it would be better to have it invested more on prevention. As the saying goes: An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

Thank you for your article @jerrybanfield

hello jerry u r intresting person

Thanks for the recommendation! Will definitely have to check it out, I want to live long enough to be a whale!!!!

great post i always follow you you are awesome like you @ jerrybanfield

I am a nurse. What I learned in nursing school is different from what I have learned about nutrition from alternative medicine. Now I wish I could tell all my diabetic and obese patients what I have learned. But within the practice of nursing, there’s no place for that kind of advice because doctors aren’t advising it. It’s all about medications. There’s no money in lifestyle changes that cure.

Hi @jerrybanfield, I have to thank you. I am here from watching your videos on Youtube. I found myself writing a blog post earlier, which is something I have never done. I think I will keep it up, it's a way to tell my crazy life story. I might be the only person on here, who doesn't want people to read his posts, well almost no one. If you had time could you swing by and give me feedback. You don't have to vote on it. Thanks a million, sorry if I high jacked your comments, im still trying to navigate the site.

This was a great post. For me it dredged up a bit of mixed feelings from the past year I recall my mother’s nurse that came to visit her periodically telling her you know that the chemotherapy doctors are going to poison you and bring you within the brink of death. I don’t know if he was trying to be helpful or just prepare us for the worst but it really shook me up. If ever I go down the path that my mother went heaven forbid , I’m very on the fence about going with chemotherapy

Thank you for sharing us about health...i think this is very useful for everyone.

It is kind of crazy @jerrybanfield. I grew up in Denmark where there is socialized medicine, and one of the discussions among my Danish relatives is often "healthcare in America."

Whereas I can totally respect the idea of capitalism and a free economy, there's a problem there when it comes to healthcare: We end up with a system that focuses on treatment rather than *healing." The industry can keep making a profit on people who get "treated" for what ails them... but if you actually heal someone, they stop being a potential customer.

In a sense, we have a similar issue with the the "for profit" prison system in the USA. Since business makes money off people being in prison, there's no real incentive for true rehabilitation.

Important topic, thanks!

Hey I just created my account .please upvote me

It is so easy to forget about all the real, good people in the healthcare community when the capitalistic goals seem to overshadow things. That's especially helpful to remember knowing that stress tends to lower the immune system. Thanks for such an insightful post/interview.

Some People work and work and work... then save and save and save. But when it get sick, money will just be spend in health and a very big ouch in our pocket. Life should be in balance. Work, save, travel (rest). Then do it agai n... simple but sonetimes hard to do :D

Great post!! I just finished a post that discusses my journey to adopting a vegan lifestyle. It might interest you, check it out if you get the opportunity.

https://steemit.com/health/@cool-mike/journey-to-living-a-healthy-lifestyle-becoming-a-vegan

Oh, how your health system differs from ours! We are afraid to get sick, doctors do not treat ... it's so sad ...

nice post

Awesome article! I recently switched using the term healthcare with self care in all of my material after struggling to continue to make excuses for the areas of our "healthcare" systems that are failing. Empowerment, education, prevention models and personal responsibility is key with committed progressive holistic practitioners willing to advocate for those who need support

Stay healthy dude <3

Such a knowledgable video and really motivating me !
About Profit no matter how much we get , Health is Number 1.
@Jerrybanfield yours post always inspire me !