Thanks for dropping in! This edition is a bit of a whimsical approach to a very serious subject, and an illustration of why you should keep reading and re-reading my essays!

Once upon a time…

…. there was a dangerous cliff road that led down into a lovely green valley. And in the valley was the backward little town of Pleasanton. The cliff road was the only way in and out of town. It was narrow, and scary, and hard to drive on. And sadly, oftentimes, cars would go over the cliff and crash to the bottom. Sometimes people got hurt.

The townspeople could not agree on how to fix this problem, so one day they all decided to have a big meeting and take a vote.

The Ambulance Voters

Most all of the townsfolk believed that they should park an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff road. The nearest hospitals were many miles away, and having an ambulance ready and waiting right at the spot where the cars were landing would get help to the injured quickly. A big hospital 10 miles away had offered to park an ambulance there for free, and they all had ‘socialized’ medical insurance, paid for by their taxes, to cover the cost of their injury treatment.

The Guardrail Voters

A handful of the townspeople believed instead of an ambulance they should place a strong guardrail along the cliff road to keep cars from going over the edge. The guardrail idea was expensive though, and would have to be paid for by an additional tax on the townsfolk.

The ambulance idea won the vote. As it turned out, most of the folks in the town weren't willing to pay the cost or make the effort to put up the guardrail when a free ambulance was on offer. They took comfort in knowing that at very least, the injuries they might suffer would be handled fast with an ambulance ready and waiting… and they all lived foolishly ever after. - THE END

What’s the moral of the story?

Though this odd children's tale is fiction, oftentimes the truth is even stranger. The truth is, we handle our health for the most part in the same way the backward folks of Pleasanton do. We have dangerous lifestyle related habits that require work and expense to change. But rather than doing that, the average American continues to place him or herself at risk, knowing there is an ambulance called modern medicine waiting to treat the symptoms of what are otherwise preventable diseases.

According to the centers for disease control, over half of the adults in America have at least one chronic, degenerative disease. And this is getting worse. Most all of these are preventable illnesses.

Health Insurance DOES NOT Ensure Our Health

Health insurance, for the most part, is financial planning, AND NOT a way of ensuring that we stay healthy and disease free. It makes the cost of treating `preventable diseases’ with non-curative methods personally less catastrophically expensive. It is a false safety net if being healthy is truly what you want.

I’m not suggesting we should not have health insurance. Accidents do happen, and life-threatening circumstances can arise. But the great majority of claims made to major medical insurance are for the ongoing management, not cure, of preventable illness.

Two wonderful things would happen if each and every American knuckled down and did the hard work to build a preventative guard rail around their health.

• 90% of chronic, degenerative diseases would disappear.

• Major medical insurance would become very inexpensive.

No matter how we try to slice up the contentious subject of major medical insurance expense and who pays for what, the primary reason it is largely unaffordable for most is that there are too many sick folks with preventable, lifestyle induced illnesses, receiving ineffective, non-curative, expensive medical treatment.

My newsletters will continue to direct your attention to the major causes of preventable illness (click read-online and scroll the archive for diet and lifestyle editions that go to this subject). This link is a good starting point:

 https://erics-newsletter-1cf2b1.beehiiv.com/p/the-dark-syndrome-of-our-times-cc48

Like a drunkard driving carelessly on a dangerous cliff road, too many of us are accidents waiting to happen. We are figuratively driving ourselves over cliffs.

Proper management of the chemical, emotional, and physical stresses of life are the only way to ensure our health. I will continue to shine a light on how. I am here to help.

Until next time, avoid dangerous cliffs!

Blessings to you,