What is Really in the Health Care Bill?

Shocking Details Within the Health Care Bill

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines freedom as "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action". The absence of necessity, such as forcing a person to make a decision through force, or the restraint of other options. What if someone wants to make the decision to utilize their natural health options? Shouldn't this be protected by our nation's allegiance to freedom? Read the shocking details of the bill below.

While the idea of universal health care is an interesting one, based upon covering everyone so that they may have the options to pursue optimum health, this is not what the current health care plan is all about. In fact, the current health care bill, almost 2,000 pages long, is based on an insane medical hierarchical system in which younger patients are favored over older patients. Considering it's length, most Americans will not read the bill. It remains to be seen as to every piece of information the bill contains, as it takes an understanding of "Washington-speak" to decode it in it's entirety, but new information is coming out daily as to it's contents. Beyond the skewed reasoning of the bill in regards to it's "survival of the fittest" mentality, the bill also dictates what kind of treatment you will receive at the end of your life (Section 1233, P.430). Many are saying that there are indeed cases in which you may receive no treatment at all.Economics of the bill

Aside from the medical aspect of the bill, it also sets wages for Doctors (Section 225 and Section 223). In some polls, 45% of Doctors said they would consider leaving their practice or retiring early if the health care bill was passed. The bill's projected coasts are soaring higher and higher, some reports estimating 1 trillion is the final cost. Of course that means you will be forced to pay back the debt through massive tax increases and other lucrative money-making mechanisms that are established to pay for the horrible medical treatment the nation will be receiving. Furthermore, take a look at the points taken from the bill by Americans for Tax Reform.

The American Health Care System: How Can We Improve It?

What is wrong with America's health care system? We spend more on health care than any other nation, yet access to affordable health care is out of reach for an increasing number of Americans each year. A productive society is one that is generally healthy, hard-working, and educated. Poor health in America results in a national decline in productivity and wages and an increase in health care expenses. What can we do to help improve our current fragmented health care system?

First, access to adequate affordable health care should be everyone's concern, not just a worry for the poor or the uninsured. I firmly believe the American health care system should focus more on prevention and keeping citizens healthy; not just diagnosing and treating diseases after one becomes ill.

As Americans we need to work together, start thinking outside the box and develop ways to improve and streamline our current health care system. Everyone seems to have ideas, but there needs to be a stronger commitment to improving access, quality, and overall affordability of health care in America.

As health care costs continue to climb, the national nursing shortage is worsening and dentists and physicians, especially specialists, are scarce in many areas. Thirty-some years ago as a nursing student, I was taught that for every dollar spent on disease prevention there is a seven dollar savings in future treatment costs. We seem to have forgotten, or just chosen to ignore this statistic.

The health care system in this country is very fragmented. Experts in the field generally agree--our system isn't broken, but needs some major overhaul. I believe our current health care system is so profit-driven it has totally lost focus of trying to keep our citizens healthy.

The Best Habit for Your Health: Water

Four Top Reasons Why Water Makes You Healthier, Thinner, and Prettier, and How to Make Sure You're Getting Enough

When it comes to your health, water is nature�"s secret weapon. Your body needs water in order to complete the most essential daily tasks, and water is at the core of processes like flushing away impurities, and even regulating how much you eat. Although there may not be any magic potion for instant better health, water comes as close to that dream as anything possibly could. If you�"re concerned about losing weight, feeling better, having more vibrant hair and skin, or just improving your overall health, water will help you do all this and more. Read on to learn more about what water does for your health, and how to make sure you�"re getting enough.

Eat Less, Feel Fuller
A recent study shows that a large percentage of Americans can�"t actually tell the difference between the sensations of hunger and thirst. In this study, people who were nutritionally satisfied but needed more fluids repeatedly reached for an unnecessary snack, and named their craving as �Shunger.⬝ In fact, what they really needed was one simple no-cal, no-fat treat for their health: water. One of the reasons we often crave more food than we can metabolize is because we need its water content. Drinking water often throughout the day will help you feel satisfied in two ways. First, it will take up room in your stomach so that you�"re less inclined to overeat at meals. Second, adequate hydration will protect you from reaching for a snack by mistake when what you really need is fluid. When it comes to your weight and your health, water is your secret weapon.

Free Health Care Clinics in Jacksonville, Florida

Where to Go when You Need Help

Where do you go when your child wakes up in the middle of the night sick? Where do you go if you need help? Where do you turn when you can't afford to pay for a doctor? Free health care clinics are available, and there to help you in your time of need. Clinics can be set up in a variety of ways. Most will see you for free, but base repayment on a sliding scale depending on your income. Others will assist you in filling out paperwork for children's medical coverage, or even your own if you qualify. Some clinics operate for more urgent care needs like broken bones, children's ear infections, and strep throat cases. Others are an actual medical clinic with lab work that can be performed in-house, pregnancy care, routine checkups, and immunizations. This also provides you with the chance to establish a regular family physician, pediatrician, or obstetrician.

If you do use one of these clinics however, be prepared to wait. There are relatively few of these clinics to go around to meet the needs of entire communities. This is because many of these clinics don't make a whole lot of revenue--and the doctors who work here don't make much either. These clinics are often overcrowded and employees are often overworked with high patient loads. However, they are great choices for those times you need to use them.

Here is a list of several free health care clinics offered in the Jacksonville, Florida area:

Volunteers in Medicine--Jacksonville

VIM is a completely volunteer run medical clinic that provides free medical services to the working uninsured. All workers are volunteers, and management of problems or conditions is given through generic or contributed medications. The clinic is able to treat most cases of hypertension, diabetes, asthma, COPD, respiratory infections, sinus and urinary tract infections, and other minor illness or conditions.

Do Your Health a Favour and Get Some Sunshine

New research has shown that living in a cold, dull climate leads to unhealthy low Vitamin D levels.

One in four post-menopausal white women living in Scotland in the UK were found to be Vitamin D deficient during the grey and cloudy winter - compared to not a single one living in the

 south.

The research also showed that 60% of Asian women living in the south of England were Vitamin D deficient during the winter.

Adequate Vitamin D levels are essential for optimum health. Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, necessary to build strong bones, and deficiency can cause osteoporosis in adults and rickets in children. The resulting fragile bones result in numerous health problems including avoidable fractures.

The main source of Vitamin D is sunlight - the body manufactures the vitamin in the skin after exposure to ultraviolet light. In the UK, the UV wavelength is not sufficiently intense to produce Vitamin D between October and April so levels of the vitamin have to be topped up by sun exposure in summer or food rich in Vitamin D. Oily fish, liver, eggs, margarine, some breakfast cereals and powdered milk are all good sources of vitamin D.

Aberdeen University's Dr Helen Macdonald led the new study. After evaluating the results, she believes that "the (official) recommendation of ten minutes of sunlight exposure a day may need to be changed for those with darker skin or in higher latitudes."

She studied sunlight exposure and Vitamin D levels in women under the age of 65 in Aberdeen (Scotland) and in Surrey (England). The women were given ultraviolet B light-sensitive badges to measure their exposure to sunlight and their Vitamin D levels were measured at 3-monthly intervals over a 15-month period. The study's results showed that ultraviolet exposure was lower in Aberdeen in the north - and the number of women with Vitamin D deficiency was higher. Deficiency was 25 to 27% during winter and spring, and 4.2% in summer.

Free Health Care Clinics in Jacksonville, Florida

Where to Go when You Need Help

Where do you go when your child wakes up in the middle of the night sick? Where do you go if you need help? Where do you turn when you can't afford to pay for a doctor? Free health care clinics are available, and there to help you in your time of need. Clinics can be set up in a variety of ways. Most will see you for free, but base repayment on a sliding scale depending on your income. Others will assist you in filling out paperwork for children's medical coverage, or even your own if you qualify. Some clinics operate for more urgent care needs like broken bones, children's ear infections, and strep throat cases. Others are an actual medical clinic with lab work that can be performed in-house, pregnancy care, routine checkups, and immunizations. This also provides you with the chance to establish a regular family physician, pediatrician, or obstetrician.

If you do use one of these clinics however, be prepared to wait. There are relatively few of these clinics to go around to meet the needs of entire communities. This is because many of these clinics don't make a whole lot of revenue--and the doctors who work here don't make much either. These clinics are often overcrowded and employees are often overworked with high patient loads. However, they are great choices for those times you need to use them.

Here is a list of several free health care clinics offered in the Jacksonville, Florida area:

Volunteers in Medicine--Jacksonville

VIM is a completely volunteer run medical clinic that provides free medical services to the working uninsured. All workers are volunteers, and management of problems or conditions is given through generic or contributed medications. The clinic is able to treat most cases of hypertension, diabetes, asthma, COPD, respiratory infections, sinus and urinary tract infections, and other minor illness or conditions.

Do You Drink Enough Water or Are Some of Your Health Problems Caused by Chronic Dehydration?

We all take in water from fruit, vegetables and other foods and most of us drink tea, coffee, juice or other drinks that give our bodies water. It's easy to become dehydrated though and low-level, chronic dehydration is bad for our health.

If you exercise a lot, drink alcohol regularly, live in a hot country or keep your home heated to a high temperature you may not always be as well hydrated as you need to be for optimum health. In addition, as people age their thirst reflex becomes weaker. You cannot entirely rely on thirst to tell you when you need to drink more water.

Here are eight good reasons to drink plenty of water - every day.

Our blood is comprised of 80% water. We need water every day in order to form new and healthy blood cells.

Our bones are over 50% water. That water needs to be constantly replenished.

Our lymphatic system drains potentially dangerous waste from our body tissues. To work effectively, it needs water.

Water helps regulate the functioning of our brain and nervous system.

Water helps to maintain the delicate balance our body temperature.

Water also plays a key role in eliminating waste from our bodies through the kidneys, bladder and intestines.

Water is essential to lubricate and protect joints and reduce joint pain. Cartilage and synovial fluid help cushion joints against wear and tear. They need water.
(A friend of mine says pain from arthritis in several joints has quite dramatically diminished since he consciously started drinking more water each day.)

Water regulates our metabolism, governing the release of energy from food and the functioning of muscles and organs.

Do Your Health a Favour and Get Some Sunshine

New research has shown that living in a cold, dull climate leads to unhealthy low Vitamin D levels.

One in four post-menopausal white women living in Scotland in the UK were found to be Vitamin D deficient during the grey and cloudy winter - compared to not a single one living in the

 south.

The research also showed that 60% of Asian women living in the south of England were Vitamin D deficient during the winter.

Adequate Vitamin D levels are essential for optimum health. Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, necessary to build strong bones, and deficiency can cause osteoporosis in adults and rickets in children. The resulting fragile bones result in numerous health problems including avoidable fractures.

The main source of Vitamin D is sunlight - the body manufactures the vitamin in the skin after exposure to ultraviolet light. In the UK, the UV wavelength is not sufficiently intense to produce Vitamin D between October and April so levels of the vitamin have to be topped up by sun exposure in summer or food rich in Vitamin D. Oily fish, liver, eggs, margarine, some breakfast cereals and powdered milk are all good sources of vitamin D.

Aberdeen University's Dr Helen Macdonald led the new study. After evaluating the results, she believes that "the (official) recommendation of ten minutes of sunlight exposure a day may need to be changed for those with darker skin or in higher latitudes."

She studied sunlight exposure and Vitamin D levels in women under the age of 65 in Aberdeen (Scotland) and in Surrey (England). The women were given ultraviolet B light-sensitive badges to measure their exposure to sunlight and their Vitamin D levels were measured at 3-monthly intervals over a 15-month period. The study's results showed that ultraviolet exposure was lower in Aberdeen in the north - and the number of women with Vitamin D deficiency was higher. Deficiency was 25 to 27% during winter and spring, and 4.2% in summer.

Food Combining for Optimum Health: A Closer Examination

The "art" of food combining basically refers to knowing which foods can/should be eaten together at the same meal and which ones shouldn't. Proponents of food combining teach that indiscriminately consuming more than one kind of food at a time is the underlying and hidden cause of much discomfort after meals. They warn that ailments from heart burn to mild food poisoning are usually due to the improper mixing of foods.

According to one of the strongest advocates of this way of eating, "...Eating is the usual haphazard mixtures of bread with meat, bread with eggs, bread with cheese, bread with other protein, or potatoes with proteins. When one eats a hamburger or a hot dog, one does not eat his flesh first and then follow with his bun.... The stomach has no mechanism for separating these thoroughly intermixed substances and partitioning them off in separate compartments in its cavity" (Herbert M. Shelton, Food Combining Made Easy[San Antonio, TX: Willow Publishing, Inc., 1992], 19).

The author proceeds to encourage the practice of food combining by stating how animals tend to eat one food at a meal, that the carnivore doesn't mix starches with protein. He points out that birds consume insects at one period of the day and seeds at a different time. Therefore, he concludes that man should, "Eat protein foods and carbohydrate foods at separate meals." He emphasizes this as the second "rule" for proper food combining.

To follow such a rule requires, according to the author, abandoning meals such as hamburgers, hot dogs, ham on rye, eggs in potato salad, and sandwiches. While it is true that multiple course meals tend to cause discomfort and discomfort, according to medical doctors, is usually a sign of something wrong, attempting to copy the eating habits of animals will also lead to incorrect deductions. How should the choice of which animals to imitate be made? Owls eat rodents whole, fur and all; dogs will eat their own vomit; many large snakes go days without eating; birds eat worms and no animals cook anything. How much can observing their dietary habits really offer to man?

Necessary Vitamins to Improve Daily Health

Because of the way that vitamins regulate our metabolism, and helps with the process in which energy is released from the food that we eat; vitamins are very important to have in our life - and they bring us good health.

Our bodies need many different vitamins and minerals everyday to maintain optimum health. And the vitamins needed by the body varies between different people, as well as between men and women. Because women usually have smaller bones than a man, she could be more at risk for osteoporosis. If a woman is in the middle of her monthly period, she will probably need more iron. And, if a woman is pregnant or nursing, she will need more of just about every vitamin.

Though I think that all vitamins are important for well balanced health, these five vitamins I believe to be among the more important ones.

1. Vitamin A or Beta-Carotene is the vitamin known to be helpful in preventing night blindness and other vision problems. When our mothers used to tell us to eat our carrots because they were good for our eyes; she was right. Green and yellow fruits and vegetables are excellent sources of Vitamin A, but you can also get adequate amounts of this vitamin in apricots, cantaloupe and peaches for you fruits; and in your vegetables you can get it in asparagus, broccoli, sweet potatoes and spinach just to name a few.

2. B Complex - a combination of all your necessary B vitamins. The body uses the B vitamins working together to properly metabolize fats, carbohydrates and protein. A deficiency of B vitamins can cause irritability, fatigue and problems with your hair, nails and skin. Plums, prunes and raisins are good sources of fruit to get this vitamin in, and good sources of vegetables would be beans broccoli and Brussels sprouts. You can also get adequate amounts from most nuts.

3. Vitamin C is absolutely necessary to protect our bodies from illness and infection. It is also thought to help with tissue growth and repair. You can get this vitamin from most all of your green vegetables, berries and citrus fruits. Tomatoes and turnips are good sources as well.

Raw Food Diet + Alkalinity = Optimum Health

The human body requires the intake and digestion of food to provide fuel for growth and energy. It must maintain a positive level of alkalinity to function properly. By nature the body tends to be an acid producing entity which creates a problem, as acidity causes illness and disease. Too much acid is toxic.

Measuring the body for acidity and alkalinity is done by ph (potential hydrogen) testing. The ph scale runs from 0 -14 with 7.0 being neutral. Below 7.0 on the ph scale is acidic and above 7.0 is alkaline. Human blood should test out with a ph between 7.35 - 7.45 for peak performance and wellness. The body utilizes and stores acid neutralizers from the food it ingests. Calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium are all neutralizers. When the body is too acidic it will use up its stores of neutralizers and then start stripping itself of these minerals from bones, teeth and vital organs. It is this process that results in deficiencies.

Too much acidity causes: fatigue, headache, insomnia, indigestion, nausea, dehydration, diabetes, lupus, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, bladder and kidney damage, immune deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, lactic acid build up, yeast and fungal overgrowth, constipation and more. Diet is the number one cause of alkalinity imbalance. Meat, eggs, bread, dairy products, artificial sweeteners, sugar, white flour, coffee, carbonated drinks and preservatives are the main culprits.

Balancing the body's ph level requires perfecting the digestive process. The proper digestion of food requires enzymes. In fact the human body cannot survive without enzymes. Digestive enzymes are primarily produced by the stomach, liver and pancreas. Raw foods are packed with enzymes. A raw food diet provides the necessary enzymes for proper food digestion and optimal disease free health. The body stores enzymes that are not needed for immediate energy as a back up supply for later use.