Our goal should be to reduce human suffering and work so that people have their mental and physical health to enjoy life and their time on earth.
We Need to Acknowledge and Reshape Our “Pill for Every Ill” Culture
First, we need to acknowledge our "pill for every ill" culture where we, by default, look for a "magic pill" and prescribe lots medications to mask symptoms of medical issues instead of addressing root causes to fix the underlying problem. This pattern is most noticeable in diet related issues, but it has opened the door for all sorts of prescribing and marketing problems.
We need to take a Health first/root causes approach, where we promote and examine healthy lifestyle choices, like diet, exercise, work, and health of interpersonal relationships, and also family health, household and community safety and stability that directly impact physical and mental health.
By prioritizing our own health instead of looking for "magic pills, and starting to be more cognizant of our own health- we will shift the medical culture’s prescribing practices, with will: stop normalizing pill pushing, stop the need for “side effect” medications. And, this will improve health and lower healthcare costs.
Prioritize Health
Drug Abuse and Addiction
Our Drug Laws and Culture should work to reduce harm and promote mental and physical health. Our drug laws need to rely on honesty, science, and freedom over ones body - and not be based on cultural biases or financial influence.
To promote health over punishment, we need to steer our drug addiction responses toward harm reduction models for addiction. This includes emphasizing programs to strengthen social bonds between people addicted to drugs like:
- Drug courts
- Skills and Education Programs
- Family Health Programs
- Access to Treatment
- Mental Health Counseling
We do that not just with Healthcare for All, but also by steering systemic change in our healthcare systems and food systems towards Prioritizing Health.
We need to educate, emphasize, and actively take on the Responsibility of Basic Nutrition (Diet, Exercise, Sleep).
Our American Standard Diet leads to obesity and diabetes II at alarming rates, causing 1/3rd of Americans (120 Million People) to take expensive medications every day - which then costs us billions of dollars each year.
Emphasizing Basic Health will:
- reduce the rate of chronic disease, which will reduce suffering and reduce healthcare costs;
- strengthen our immune systems, improving personal health, which will reduce suffering and reduce healthcare costs;
- Reduce the need for expensive daily medications, significantly reducing our healthcare costs.
- Improve people's quality of life.
We need to work on lowering the bankrupting trajectory of our healthcare system by:
- Combatting pharmaceutical price gauging;
- Reducing the enormous healthcare burden created by diet related metabolic issues, such as obesity, which cause the great majority of death, medical issues, and the largest portion of healthcare costs;
- Increasing the supply of more skilled doctors and medical professionals with less debt, decreasing the average cost per doctor.
We Need to Think Big and Get Serious About Healthcare for our 30-50 Year Long Term
About 44% of Massachusett's $45 Billion state budget goes to healthcare every year.
Right now, we face an aging baby boomer population, with more people living longer, needing more medications - and at the same time, the younger generations have lower incomes, less assets, less of a tax base and more likely to need for public assistance for their own healthcare.
Right now, our state and entire country are set up for an enormous economic problem - and it's coming fast. We need to anticipate and preclude this problem - and we can start by both getting pharma gauging under control, getting our health under control, and building our economy so we can support these healthcare needs.
Improve Mental Health Infrastructure,
We have to acknowledge that our human brains are at an evolutionary mismatch with our modern, intense, unnatural, high intensity 24/7 world that's mixed with our very real economic pressures. As a result it's only natural that we experience mental and emotional overloads in so many complex ways - no matter age, sex, or income. We have to acknowledge that the stress, anxiety, and depression is very real - but that's not wrong.
As a society, and as we grow our economy and reform healthcare, and education systems in MA, we ensure that we have the adequate, compassionate, community level, mental infrastructure need to mitigate stress, anxiety, and depression - and let people know they're not alone. This also includes working with more wholistic approaches to mental health, diet, exercise, taking a break from social media, instead of masking natural, human, emotions with drugs.
Mendez For State Senate
Invest in People:
Prioritize Health