"Fear Based" Health Care?

The other evening, I was watching, "Charlie Rose."  If you've never had the opportunity to watch his interviews, I highly recommend you do.  I think he's the best interviewer on television.  Mr. Rose was interviewing an actor who plays on the television show, "Homeland."  Now, I have to confess to never having watched that or "Breaking Bad," or "Mad Men," or any other of those shows that one has to pay for the privilege of watching.  However, something the British actor (whose American accent is impressive) said piqued my interest.

He said, speaking in reference to what he sees as one of the foundations of the American health care system, that we base our decisions and choices on fear.  The sale of pharmaceuticals, he said, is based on the Americans' fear of the potential of disease.  "Wow," I thought, "that fellow hit the nail on the head."  Look at the explosion of ads aimed at convincing us that if we don't take xxxxx medication, we'll surely die of heart disease, cancer, diabetes or some other horrible condition.  And, what particularly amuses me, in a sardonic sort of way, is that the marketing machine knows that it doesn't matter how many horrendous side effects the ads detail, we will buy, nay, demand them from our medical doctors.  And, once prescribed, we hang onto these prescriptions as though they were the very elixir of life.

Is it possible for us, as a nation, to recognize this fear-based choice as opposed to a wellness-based choice to health?  Honestly, I don't know, but, from my experience over this past decade, I highly doubt it.  I think I came to that final conclusion after watching an advertisement for an insulin medication for Type 2 diabetics.  If you have this type of diabetes (caused primarily by bad eating habits), you no longer have to watch your diet so carefully as you can simply inject insulin after any and all meals!  Ah, "health" made simple!  What the ad doesn't say is that synthetic insulin only helps for a period of time.  Eventually, the piper has to be paid, one way or the other.

We have a choice....take the "easy" short term road with our health or take the longer, more involved,  long term road that gives us the opportunity to take a pro-active approach to life rather than a fear-based approach.  In other words, do we want to take responsibility for our health or do we want to abdicate that responsibility to fear?
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