Saturday, February 18, 2012

Whitney Houston and Self Medication

The Grammy Award singer Whitney Houston had a great deal of money, and she self-medicated herself into a grave.

The dangers of self-medication is important to me because I favor self-funding of health care.

When people are left in isolation to self-medicate, they are apt to abuse the medication.

My advocacy of self-funded health care does not mean that I think people should live in isolation.

It is quite the opposite. I favor self-funded care because I believe that a well designed system of self-funded care would bring people together in a mutually beneficial fashion.

The power of self-funded care is that such a system draws attention to the individual. Drawing attention to a person reduces his isolation. In contrast, group funding of care draws attention away from the individual as the policymakers concentrate on the collective.

If self funding is executed correctly, it would bring people together to address questions surrounding individual health and wellness.

The heart and soul of the Medical Savings and Loan is the Health Care Advocate. The advocate is a non-medical professional who is directly employed by clients and who helps people make financial plans and negotiate medical care.

The advocate position is largely clerical. The first job of the advocate is to help people keep records about medical savings and expenses. In doing so, the advocate helps people understand their health needs and medical decisions.

My hope is that this non-medical position will become a sounding board for people as they make the important medical and financial decisions that affect their well being.

I emphasize that the advocate as a non-medical position. I see a strong need for a non-medical position involved in helping people make decisions.

Medical professionals, by their profession, are interested in finding medical answers for the care of health. But human life is such that medicine is only a small part of well being.
Doctors, who were trained to provide agressive care in cases of ill health, do not make the best advocates ... especially for young healthy people.

Michael Jackson was a vibrant healthy singer in his prime. He had plenty of money and doctors on staff. The doctors surrounded the singer with the most potent medications on the market ... a decision which cost the life of singer.

Medical professionals, by defintion, are people who are seeking to take an active role in the delivery of medical aide. People are not in constant need of actual medical intervention.

Like most Americans, I am sad that no-one intervened in the sad stores of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston.

I believe that, in a robust free health care market, there would be room for a non-medical position called Health Care Advocate.

The advocate is largely a clerical position. The advocate helps people maintain records, make financial plans and helps negotiate services.

This advocate is positioned to becoming a life coach who will help people take a proactive role in their lives.

Watching people destroy themselves with self-medication, I've become convinced that self-funded care cannot work without the creation of such a position.

Insurance agents and claims adjusters currently play this role. But since they work for the insurance company, they are not achieving their full potential as advocates.

I am trying to draw people into a discussion of the Medical Savings and Loan as an alternative to insurance. The real heart of this program is the position of Health Care Advocate. I registered the domain HCA.me.

Self-medication kills. Self-funding of care is not self-medication. Since attention in health care follows the money, self-funding of care would draw attention to the individual and should create additional points of intervention to prevent over use of medications as the advocates focus people on well being.

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