most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional
If given a fair choice, most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional health care
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) As a strong proponent of free market economics, I have long wondered why free markets don't seem to be operating in the health care industry. Today, it finally hit me with great clarity, and I'll share that with you here. But first, a primer on free market economics:
As the free market theory says, "greed is good" because innovators can only get rich by figuring out how to deliver more goods, services and life improvements to consumers who purchase those items. The genius who figures out how to build a better car -- or a less expensive car of the same quality -- earns the business of consumers and is financially rewarded as a result. Greed drives innovation, the theory goes, and innovation benefits consumers even as it fills the pockets of corporate CEOs, too.
This model works under one critical assumption, and it turns out that assumption is not true in health care today (for reasons you'll see below). Which assumption is it? That consumers will rationally purchase only those things that are in their own self interest (things that benefit them) and, equally importantly, that consumers have access to the information they need to make an informed decision.
So, for example, if a solar panel manufacturer figures out a way to make a new line of solar panels with twice the current efficiency at the same cost as current solar panels, consumers will rationally choose to purchase those solar panels and will experience a benefit as a result (but only if they have access to accurate information about the improved performance of those solar panels). The CEO who runs the company that figured out how to make the new, improved solar panels will also reap the financial rewards at the same time.
This is called free market theory in a nutshell.
How it all fell apart in health care
But all this falls apart when corporations are selling products that harm consumers under an irrational system protected by government intervention. Many pharmaceuticals, vaccines and treatment services (such as chemotherapy) actually harm consumers far more than they help them. Knowing this, no rational consumer would choose to purchase such products. So the health care system must engage in some rather devious marketing distortions to cajole people into buying their faulty products:
#1) People are TRICKED into thinking they need these products that harm them. This is accomplished through disease mongering (pushing fabricated diseases such as ADHD), emotional advertising and bribing physicians in order to influence their drug prescribing behavior.
continued at:
https://www.NaturalNews.com/030923_a...er_choice.html
Re: most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by OrchardDweller:
If given a fair choice, most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional health care... As a strong proponent of free market economics, I have long wondered why free markets don't seem to be operating in the health care industry. ....
This model works under one critical assumption, and it turns out that assumption is not true in health care today (for reasons you'll see below). Which assumption is it? That consumers will rationally purchase only those things that are in their own self interest (things that benefit them) and, equally importantly, that consumers have access to the information they need to make an informed decision.... But all this falls apart when corporations are selling products that harm consumers under an irrational system protected by government intervention. Many pharmaceuticals, vaccines and treatment services (such as chemotherapy) actually harm consumers far more than they help them.
uh, you're right about the flaw in the previously-conventional logic justifying pure free markets. Actually, for quite a while now there's been a lot of attention paid to the various ways that people fail to use rational decision making in economic transactions. (what a shock, eh? since people are otherwise so logical in everything else!) .
Science can be applied to medical claims, oddly enough. Science is designed to perform rational analysis, UNLIKE 'free market' capitalism. which is (as you point out above) designed to exploit greed. Caveats like
Quote:
(but only if they have access to accurate information about the improved performance of those solar panels).
are equivalent to saying 'except in the real world'. A lot of economic activity consists of obfuscation and manipulation of emotion and motivations; it's naive to focus only on creation of goods and setting of prices.
This piece is also riddled with unjustified assumptions, too ("fabricated diseases such as ADHD"). If there's any medical harm being done here, it's to the brains of the unfortunate readers of this article, especially if their mental immune systems aren't equipped to fight off the nonsense in it. Nice appeal to fear of the government embedded there, too....
Re: most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional
Sure...come back and talk to me when you've been diagnosed with cancer and given less than a year to live and then tell me you will cure yourself with wheatgrass.
Re: most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by natalie:
Sure...come back and talk to me when you've been diagnosed with cancer and given less than a year to live and then tell me you will cure yourself with wheatgrass.
sadly, people do try that.
Re: most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by natalie:
Sure...come back and talk to me when you've been diagnosed with cancer and given less than a year to live and then tell me you will cure yourself with wheatgrass.
Hello Natalie and Everyone reading this,
When a person has been given a terminal diagnosis with a limited time to live (it's usually six months or less rather than a year or less), it's about providing palliative care. Keeping them comfortable and out of pain, so that they can live their remaining days in peace and dignity with their family and friends near. If they want wheat grass we provide it, if they want morphine (which happens to be a fairly natural and very effective pain killer) we provide it.
Natural medicine is more about preventative care rather than curing. It's about keeping the body, soul and mind in a state of balance so that the immune system (and all body systems) can function at an optimum capacity. I prefer to think of natural medicine as complimentary medicine rather than alternative medicine. All medicine has value.
Marty
