I've been around for 58 years, but I've rarely heard anything as stupid and as silly as the current debate over "health care." Nobody asks the fundamental questions. We hear debates about the "public option," privately-owned health care accounts, and waste and fraud in the current system, but nobody asks the question: "What IS health care?"

"Well," you say, "it's just what it says, stupid: health care…OK, it's a way to ensure that you get the proper care when you get sick."

But is it? These explanations all assume that "health care coverage" is about health. And it isn't.
It's about pharmaceutical drugs.

Look in the Physicians Desk Reference, and you'll find literally hundreds of drugs listed. But any doctor will tell you that these drugs treat symptoms. There isn't one drug in that entire huge book that cures anything, so far as I know. That's why the medical profession is so insistent that alternative practitioners can't claim a cure for any disease or health condition. They can't cure anything, so they assume that you can't either.

Orthodox, allopathic medicine has two tools in their "health" toolbox: drugs and invasive surgeries. That's what is covered in these so-called government guaranteed plans for "health care" coverage. The current health care legislation before Congress is simply a political payback to Big Pharma, for the millions big drug companies have poured into the coffers of our (so-called) elected "representatives." In most cases, your Congressman doesn't represent you, he or she represents the people who contribute to their political campaigns. That's what the party system has always been and probably always will be. That's why Jefferson and many of our founding fathers warned us against the party system.

But back to health care. Medical doctors can't cure anything. If you are given a drug, that drug will treat your symptoms, not the cause of those symptoms. Medical doctors are trained to believe –no, to know- that only a QUACK claims that he or she can cure anything. The FDA is simply an organization that promotes pharmaceutical drugs, and stomps on alternative medical practitioners. Don't get me wrong, we DO need a watchdog agency to clamp down on charlatans. Of course, there ARE alternative medical quacks, probably lots of them. But if you are going to be paying for health care, shouldn't you have a choice of practitioners? (And no, the government isn't paying for it, YOU are paying for it! Our government is bankrupt, and additional coverage guaranteed by the government will be paid for by printing more and more money, resulting in higher and higher inflation).

There are also allopathic medical quacks as well. The entire FDA drug review process is suspect, and some claim that the studies are biased toward approving drugs that have cost drug companies billions to bring to market. The recall of drugs like Vioxx make it plain that the FDA approval process has serious flaws.

A TRUE health care bill would include coverage for tried and proven alternative health systems like Chinese medicine, acupuncture, herbology, reflexology, etc. These are systems that strive to ACTUALLY CURE your condition, not mask it so that you have to keep buying drugs. And a rational health care would also include coverage for proven new therapies such as Rife technology. Royal Raymond Rife, a brilliant American scientist, cured cancer back in 1934. A banquet was held in his honor back then, attended by prominent scientists and physicians in Southern California, called "The End to All Diseases." I know a doctor (who shall remain nameless of course) who is getting cancer cure rates over 94% using Rife technology, as opposed to under 5% with chemo. And chemo costs a bundle, whereas Rife is much, much cheaper and safer.

A rational health care debate would first ask the question, "what is health care?" and define it. And then proceed from there. But of course, that cannot be done. For to ask that question would bring forth all sorts of unpleasant realities about the pharmaceutical industry and BOTH parties' connection to it. The Republican opposition to health care is mere grandstanding.

So the next time someone asks you whether you have health care coverage, ask them what they mean by health care. I'll bet you most people can't even answer that basic question intelligently. And while you're at it, look up who your representatives in Congress are, and how they voted on issues that are important to you.