Life Expectancy Going Down
August 3rd, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics | 6 Comments »My dad started an online course with the University of Arizona recently educating doctors in the practices of Ayurvedic medicine. Ayurvedic medicine is an ancient Hindu system of healthcare that is quite different from the traditional western medicine that we all love and trust. In recent years, there has been a great intermixing of medicinal knowledge between the West and the East with more doctors educating themselves in the West with regards to Eastern medical knowledge like Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and Reiki. The advantages of these alternate forms of medicine are that they are generally low cost and in some cases work better for specific illnesses.
I am actually a big fan of acupuncture as it helps me de-stress which I have a hard time doing for some reason. These alternative types of medicine have aided in changing the American healthcare system to a small degree however greater change is advocated by Dr. Patch Adams. Dr. Adams has worked for the last 35 years to promote his different vision for healthcare and in doing so has traveled all over the world including 3 different war zones.
If anyone is a fan of Robin Williams, you might remember the movie Patch Adams which is actually about Dr. Adams and his life changing healthcare. The reason I bring up Dr. Adams today is because I am a big believer in Universal Healthcare having spoken to my older brother who lives under the NHS system in London. A few former french classmates for my post-grad who have nothing but good things to say about the French system. My father, a doctor who has worked within the Irish medical system for as long as I can remember and believes that everyone person has the right to health care.
Al Jazeera has a weekly segment entitled inside America, the most recent segment appearing two weeks ago concerning the healthcare system in America:
Inside USA - Healthcare Part 1
Inside USA - Healthcare Part 2
The simple and most startling point in this 30 minute show is that life expectancy in rural America is decreasing.
