I am going to apologize up front for any ranting that happens in this post but I am so sick(pardon the pun) of hearing about the health care crisis in this country.

Before I even start into the health side of it I would like to say occasionally people(even doctors) do make mistakes and if there was no negligence I do not think they should be sued. Thats right, even if the mistake caused pain and suffering to the patient if it was a mistake that happened despite overall good technique I don’t think the doctor or hospital should be sued. Sometimes the doctor does everything right and things still don’t turn out the way the patient wants. The doctor should not be sued.

If the patient can prove that there was a pattern of neglect or poor practice techniques that is totally different but I feel our doctors and hospitals are so overly concerned with lawsuits that they are unable to practice in an efficient and cost effective way. Wonder why that aspirin at the hospital costs you $10, talk to the lawyers.

Ok, that is one rant out of the way. Now to the way to solve the problem of too many sick people in the system. I know I am just a back woods, Texas horse vet(and probably on several homeland security watch lists) but it seems so simple to me. PREVENTION! When I say prevention I don’t mean doing more diagnostic testing to start treating sick people sooner, I mean keeping people from getting sick. I mean focusing on diet, exercise, spiritual and emotional balance in people’s lives.

Unfortunately, we are going to have to ride out the current load on our healthcare system because so many people in it have relied on the system to cover all their health needs and taken no responsibility for their own health. This has to change. My generation and those behind me will have to step up and take control of our own health.

Instead of going to the doctor for every sniffle we will have to use our brains to find out why we are getting the sniffles to begin with. I see more health care providers guiding people in this process and this will allow doctors to focus on emergency care and diagnostics. Before I said that we did not need so many tests to tell us when we are sick but we do need tests to monitor our health.

I see tests to evaluate our levels of vitamins and minerals, check bone health, track hormonal patterns and track the levels of inflammation in our systems. With this kind of information, nutritional and exercise programs can be customized to each individual. People can spend their health care budget on keeping themselves healthy and the cost will be a tiny fraction of the cost of being sick.

It is not like this is some pie in the sky theory. I have seen this work in my own vet practice over the past 30 years. Not only have the horses in my practice gotten healthier but so have my clients as they put the same practices we used on the horses to work for themselves.

I am so out of practice treating a sick horse that I was a bit at a loss when a upper respiratory bug went through one of my show barns. When I did conventional practice I could treat a respiratory infection in my sleep because I saw them daily. With these horses I actually had to resort to antibiotics but it got me studying my herbs and if I see another outbreak I will be ready to treat them with natural products.

So what is your part? Find a good chiropractor, homeopath or naturopath and get on a program. Do research yourself. Find a friend that has already gone down the natural healthcare path and get some guidance. Look for someone you know and trust who works with a health oriented network marketing company. One out of five people in this country does some kind of network marketing so it should not be hard. Nutritional products marketed by network marketing companies are generally the best quality and most reps are very knowledgeable about how to use their product so you get the best results.

Take it a step further and join a good nutritional network marketing company yourself and use the power of word of mouth marketing to teach others how to be healthy. Not everyone will listen or even want to hear but your job is to find those that do and teach them to find others that also want to hear. Not only are you doing huge good for the world but your company pays you to spread the word. Think about it. Madalyn

PS Every time I tried to type good in this post it came out god. Might mean something.