This isn't health care, this is apatheic and lethargic disease prevention

A woman in Denver calls 9-1-1, dispatch emergency, requesting an ambulance.

"Severity of the emergency ma'am?"

"It's my ankle, it hurts."

"How did you hurt it?"

"Oh, I didn't do anything to it, you see I have diabetes and high cholesterol, I'm overweight, crushed my ankle because it buckled when I tried to stand and I just can't wait three more days to see my doctor, be a dear and send me some help."

Another forlorn story of apathy and lethargy in American society, the result of a people submerged in a sea of fear and loathing for far too long.  The rational mind of an average American can no longer recognize a legitimate medical emergency compared to a self-perpetuated inconvenience.  It's an emergency when that ankle was broken and needs to be mended and reset, it's an inconvenience when your weight becomes too gravitationally rebellious for your bones to handle.

As our lost society continues to weed through our ever-growing concrete jungle, our perception and understanding of our most basic emergency service, 9-1-1, has become soiled.  Now more than ever, an ill-informed populace request ambulances for non-emergency care, police assistant in getting a child to turn off the XBox 360, a husband to eat his supper, and a Mc Donald's employee for not serving a food item the location was currently bingo on.

"I'm sorry ma'am, we have none of what you ordered, may I get you something else?"

"Nah, I'mma get me the pou-lease ta' get me mah Mc' Rib."

My mom's done a lot in her life, most of that though has consisted of work.  Since 1973, she's held the same job at the same place decade in and decade out.  She's a registered nurse at Memorial Care in Long Beach CA, intensive care.  You know who gets themselves into intensive care?  Allow me to explain...

Things that will commonly get one into intensive care include the following; invasive surgery, cancer, severe illnesses that require a bed and round-the-clock care,  stroke victims, deceptive junkies, and a plethora of ailments littering Web MD's 'least wanted' list.  Things that without a doubt require hospital care.

Some things people today have gotten themselves into intensive care for; heart attack caused by obesity, chronic pains leading from obesity, non-emergency conditions (like Debra Neaves from the denverpost article) of patients who can't wait to see their doctor, and people that just don't have a doctor.  People that know no better than to pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1 when confronted with any medical issue.

Walk into an ER complaining of a medical condition and you will be seen by a doctor.
Have a medical condition that doesn't require the services of an emergency responder and you just wasted time for someone who does and the strained resources of a facility on the brink of professional and moral bankruptcy.
Take them in, get them out, but make sure they leave with a prescription!  No need to educate them on how to stay out of the ER, just push em' through...who cares if they come back just another current in our endless sea of patients.

For this is the failure of multiple aspects of our culture.  Education, general social welfare, and de-humanism. 

Education taking a back beat leads minds away from knowledge as they drift towards euphoric-driven cravings for entertainment, with glazed catatonic eyes.  Does one learn anything about how to care for their health by watching Grey's Anatomy?  Probably not.  Do many Americans know that show was pseudo-ironically named after the premier medical journal penned in the English language?  Probably not.

But this is information I have been privileged to receive, by birth, not by favoring circumstances.  Because I was luck enough to inherit a parent who instead of crusading against the inevitability of disease, has simply cared for the health of humans.

This is where we have turned about-face in our pursuit for life.  Caring for one's health is not a periodical assessment of blood tests, forced coughs, and stethoscopes.  It is an ever-present consideration for what one puts into their body, and how one carries themselves through the decades comprising their life.  Maintaining a diet that spans the multitudes of foods we consume to ensure our bodies receive as many nutrients by volume and variety as possible, consistent exercise to keep the body and it's tissues strong and fresh, and constant consideration of one's health status (feelings of weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, identifying pains).

Essentially it is on us to know our anatomy and physiology so we can engage in discussion with our doctors when we do need to visit them to best diagnose whatever is happening to our bodies.

A few mornings ago I awoke to a slowly building pressure in my ear, which over the next hour, developed into an intermittent pain.  The last time I'd had an ear infection, I was still shitting in diapers, but I never forgot what an ear infection was.  After dropping 2 Tylenol to ease the pain, I called the doctor and set an appointment for later that afternoon.  Upon arriving into room 12, the doctor asked me what was up and I explained to him what happened...

I'd taken a shower the previous night, water may have remained in my ear allowing for bacteria to grow.  The pressure built slowly over an hour, the drum may have ruptured leading to the pain I experienced.  I had used Q-tips to clean out any wax that might have blocked the passage of air, but I didn't go deep enough to pop my ear drum.  After I took the Tylenol the pain subsided but my ear still wasn't pressurizing correctly.

After he took a look, noticing some wax and blood obscuring his view of my inner ear; he came to two conclusions.  The drum popped but will heal, or I do have an ear infection as I suspected.  I left the office with 10 days worth of antibiotics for the infection with directions to return after the medicine ran out if the problem continued.

Now, five days later, my ear is fine.  Though I'll be finishing the antibiotics regime over the next five days; the infection is gone.  If the drum had indeed popped I'd still surly be suffering from that fallout.  Self-diagnosed and solved within a calendar week, not bad for someone who's medical instruction began and ended in high school during Anatomy and Physiology.

But this is also critical to understanding how we go about fostering social welfare in America.  The view of my inner ear was obstructed, but he could have taken time to clean out the wax and blood to really see what the problem was.  Though it seems that infection is the most plausible of causes, it many have been a combination of pressure pushing against my ear drum, causing the intermittent pain, and bacteria beginning to grow in water that remained and seeped deeper into my ear as the night progressed after my shower.  We'll never know, because the doctor didn't scrutinize the situation deeply.

Am I better?  Yes.  Does this show that the medical system in America has success?  Yes.

Does this constitute a factual anecdote that we are caring for health rather than preventing the inevitability for health to turn sour?  No.

If indeed our medical practitioners conducted "health care", your visit to the doctor would consist of much more than; "how are you feeling", "a person of your age only needs to worry about the following", and "take those and call me if they don't work."  These are the faulty lines in a vaudevillian medical profession we call American.  A minstrel show of cost-effective diagnosis and prescription paradise.  If the pill can't fix it, neither can my laxed skills as a medical-savant. 

Cross-eyed as it may seem, our outlook for social welfare lacks insight.  True to Henry Ford, American life continues to institute the principles of assembly-line mechanics.  Getting them in and get them out...doctor's got a full load today, time to bust the quota...next!

But what of humanity and our value for human life?  Darwanistic or not, God doesn't need to exist for there to be a deeper meaning to life.  If not for spirit, our tangibly finite mortality gives life all the meaning it will ever need to inspire a cultivating feeling for prosperity and growth.  We have but minimal moments in our life, sure it may seem a long stretch, but for those of you looking at a glass now half-full instead of half-empty, where have your years gone?

Care is an unconditional regard for compassion.  Medical care ought be an unconditional regard for health, rather than a relentless crusade against disease.  To educate our populace on anatomy and physiology will empower them to care for their own health and to pass along that knowledge to those that will come.  To regard social welfare by re-humanistic means will bring about a culture that seeks to foster life for the sake of life, not fight disease for the sake of time.

Yet as long as we Americans, allow our medical industry to remain an "industry", free market economics will be top-down the medical policy for American health care.  A health care system hell-bent towards profit from selling your health as a commodity.