Health Care Reformation

Plenty of medical practitioners testified earlier this year in front of Congress during the health care reform debate and stated it better than I will here, but let me paraphrase what they said that truly resonated with me. We do not have a health care system in the United States. Rather, we have a disease management system. We expect to be treated for and eventually die of heart disease, cancer, or complications due to diabetes. We expect our insurance companies or Medicare (in other words, our fellow citizens) to pay for the expensive medications, tests, and procedures commonly used to monitor and treat these often preventable diseases.

We can do better. I am absolutely certain of this. What we need is less a health care reform than a total Wellness Reformation.

My dream is to be on the leading edge of true reform in health care in this country. My vision of a reformed system is one in which we each take seriously our personal responsibility to care for our bodies. To the best of our abilities, we must invest effort, time, and cash in our own wellness. We can do so much damage control and risk mitigation at home by preparing and eating good clean foods, moving our muscles, and living consciously, authentically, and joyously. Doing so will minimize the cost to ourselves and our communities of providing after-the-diagnosis medical treatments. It's simple, really. Like voting, serving as jurors, paying taxes, and shoveling snow from the sidewalks in front of our houses (I'm talkin' to you, Massachusetts!), I firmly believe we all have a civic responsibility to do so. Then our health care system will be freed up to treat the things that really need attention: congenital illness, accidental injury, infectious disease.

That's right. I'm saying it's our duty to family, nation, and deity to eat our vegetables and abstain from excessive sugar.

Are you shocked? If so, why? Is this really such a radical notion? It's not a new one. You've heard it before. Your mom told you to finish your vegetables or there would be no dessert for you. Your grandma told you fish was brain food. Your great-great-grandfather fled poverty and persecution to bust prairie sod, feed his family, and build a new nation. Your pastor read you religious texts about your body being a temple. These are not wild, crazy, extremist ideas. There's no fascism, socialism or any other kind of -ism at play here. It's just you, your body, and your way down deep honest to goodness knowledge that sitting on your duff in front of the tube with a large pizza and a liter of cola every night is not really in the best interests of your long term health. You also know it's not really in the best interests of economic stability and cost of living in this great nation.

Come join me on the leading edge. If you'd like some help, give me a call. I promise to support you. I consider it my duty.

And now for some photographic inspiration. This is the filling for a beautiful lasagne I made earlier this week. Look at that gorgeous rainbow of goodness! Carrots, red peppers, onions, mushrooms (yes loved ones, I ate mushrooms!) zucchini, broccoli. If it weren't for a Meatless Monday meal, I might have spiced it up a bit with some slivers of turkey pepperoni or some chicken hot Italian sausage but really, once you get these pretties all layered up between silky noodles and gooey ricotta and luscious herby marinara sauce, who misses the meat? Not even Guy, who can still be surprised at the end of a meal by the announcement, "and there was no meat in it!"

Live authentically and well,
Mad Mama