The American medical system is, essentially, a really expensive hoax. It's a moneymaking scam designed to extract the maximum profits from the U.S. economy, funneling them into the pockets of Big Pharma shareholders and CEOs. The long term cost of this foolhardy approach to public health will be the economic downfall of the United States -- a country that is already mired in unprecedented debt, that has the highest rates of degenerative disease in the world, that's seeing its major industries (like the auto industry) toppled by foreign competitors, that continues to intentionally devalue its own currency and that has decided to invest in wars rather than education and disease prevention.
In order to prop up the profits of drug companies, the U.S. government (and its regulators like the FDA) have also decided to sacrifice the health of the entire population. Even all the current talk about health care reform is nothing more than a "who pays?" shell game designed to distract people from engaging in any meaningful thinking about overthrowing the FDA, boycotting Big Pharma, exposing the AMA and restoring health to the American people through prevention and nutrition.
In this CounterThink cartoon, I'm attempting to show just how precarious this whole situation really is. Based on a fraudulent (and criminal) system of junk science, FDA corruption, drug advertising and industry influence, the public is kept in a state of ongoing disease while employers foot the bill. The net effect is a massive transfer of wealth from workers and companies to Big Pharma. And the cost of playing this dangerous game of "keep the public sick" is the utter loss of competitiveness of U.S. businesses in the global marketplace.
This is why the Bush Administration doesn't want any other nations around the world to develop weapons. Because superior firepower is about the only bargaining chip the U.S. has left in the world. We can't out-compete China, we can't out-educate India, we can't out-manufacture Japan and we can't out-think Canada. But we can sure threaten nations with superior weapons. It's the last, desperate strategy of every failed state.
Where there is no economy based on genuine productivity, perpetual war is adopted to create the illusion of economic activity. We saw it with the Roman Empire, and we see it now with the American empire. Except America has taken it one step further and also adopted perpetual disease as an economic strategy, too.
A sane nation would act to keep its population healthy, educated and productive. But that would require sacrificing the profits of powerful corporations, of course, which hold far too much sway in Washington. And so for the sake of a few rich, fat white men, we continue to live in a nation that intentionally and deliberately keeps its population perpetually diseased. There is no attempt whatsoever to PREVENT disease, not by the American Cancer Society (which has actually fought against cancer prevention initiatives), not by the American Medical Association (which keeps pushing drugs and surgery), not by the FDA (now the marketing department of Big Pharma), not by the American Diabetes Association (which continues to tell diabetics they can eat all the sugar they want) and not even by medical schools and many practicing M.D.s.
As a result of all this, the future of the United States of America is not difficult to predict. It will eventually collapse into financial ruin, from which individual nation states like California will emerge and claim sovereignty. And then, finally, the people will be rid of the tyranny of Washington, the criminality of the FDA and the disease economy which has brought untold harm to the people of this country who, frankly, deserve better.
Of course, people will then have to deal with the tyranny of their own nation state governments, but some states will shrug off Big Pharma's influence and adopt strategies of disease prevention, nutrition education, banning junk food ads, embracing alternative medicine and other health-enhancing strategies. Those nation states will flourish, both in their economies and their health, and their people will be smarter, happier, more productive and longer-lived than anyone else. Meanwhile, the nation states that remain stuck in a drugs-and-surgery approach to medicine will remain stagnant, in perpetual economic decline, due to the enormous costs associated with treating medical symptoms rather than teaching genuine cures.
For any nation, the widespread adoption of Western medicine is a prescription for economic ruin.