2018:05 Beware the Conveyor Belt and Funnel
“For greed all nature is too little.” ~ Seneca
My data collecting self has been compiling a lot of little facts over the years about certain things. Some of it is jelling into a picture that is really ugly and sinister. You can throw me on the Conspiracy Theorist Bus if you want, but having been a banker for years, there is a need to reconcile all of the pieces and this isn’t shaking out very well. My gut validates it, though you may consider that to be more subjective than objective. Take into consideration that many feel that our gut is really more likely our first brain for you evolutionists, though it depends on who you talk to. Digressing, sorry.
When I was doing selection for health insurance a few years back, there was a series of quizzes to assist you in selecting a plan. I already knew what I wanted, but curiosity got me. To my shock, they considered someone taking as many as 11 prescriptions in a year a low user. THAT is what I learned from the quiz. Then last year I was doing a plan review with my mom for her medicare supplement and there it was again, blaring loud as possible, coverage for meds. You could barely find the information on all of the other coverage because the prescriptions part of it was clearly what it was all about.
I have a TV. I have no idea how to use it. While I ingest a fair amount of media on my other devices: movies, documentaries, video etc., I really haven’t watched TV in over 20 years other than whatever my kids watched when they were little that was mostly public broadcasting. Old people seem to all watch a lot of news and TV, so hanging out at Mom’s a lot in the past year, that thing was always blaring with either sports or news or commentaries on news where people are constantly bickering, mostly on the topic of our very controversial president. All very annoying and fearmongering. TV to me is for entertainment, these things ministered death to me and I would shut off the sound anytime I could. MOST disturbing though were the ads!
Remember back in the days of the Marlborough man, “get a Lark, get a Lark, get a Lark today!” sung to the tune of the William Tell Overture, or the Benson and Hedges “silly millimeter longer,101” commercials? Those were banned, like smoking on TV, since it was a bad promotion for our young people etc. Now we are “fighting the war on drugs”. and guess what about the only thing that is advertised now? Drugs! For depression, cancer, impotence, fibromyalgia, and a long list of things, many are conditions I have never heard of…fear inciting once again! Scaring people down the road to drugs.
I am not saying these diseases don’t exist or that they aren’t serious. I am saying there is a BIG sales funnel here. Fear is the stick keeping the herd in check. Protocol and mandates are the bars keeping the medical community on the page and the money is in Pharma’s pockets. Earlier and earlier we are being trained to step on the conveyor belt and do as we are told, take meds (different than drugs? really?, is that why they have a street value?) “only as directed”. Your child too wiggly? There’s a med (or several) for that. Your cholesterol too high? BP too high? You and your body don’t fit the prescribed box? Drugs! Pharma’s answer to your happiness and now if you don’t have health insurance, the 21st century scare, you’re doomed cause someone has to pay your pusher..ahem…for your expensive health care.
So now I watch while friends get diagnosed with cancer for something that can’t even be felt or seen with the naked eye. They are given doses of radiation that will change their bodies forever, having body parts removed for fear those parts will kill them over time. Or they experience the drain and humility of taking a prescribed chemical substance (that often has cancer causing properties) that they must mainline for any number of weeks or months losing hair and vitality which never quite returns. It’s barbaric. I am NOT saying that cancer isn’t real or that you can’t die from it, because it is and you can. I believe though that Pharma is not the only way to deal with cancer or other physical ailments and that there is a more sinister faction at play here.
I know about sales funnels, having been in sales. You want to herd as many potential customers into the wide end of the funnel that you can, in hopes of gaining some takers over time. In our American society Fear is a big driver, just look at the stock market. If you are going to have a successful funnel, you want to start getting adopters into your products as early as possible and then convince them that they need your product and service and cannot be without it. You want to cross sell so that they take a broad advantage of your full spectrum of offerings and you want them to continue to return for more so that you have a steady stream of income. You also want others of authority that can recommend (or prescribe) your product and better yet, if it is the only accepted regimen from the authorities in their company, or protocol then you have it made. Better yet, get everyone to pay for it and make the money funnel right down into your pocket. Smart business if you are in the business to maximize your profits.
Doctors are people, most of which signed up to give life and care to other humans. We have a system that has put them on that same conveyor belt. Some of them figure it out and get off. Others are stuck, many with an avalanche of student loans that must be paid, further driving the system. Many want socialized medicine so that healthcare can be free to everyone. Really, I don’t want healthcare that is a part of this system even if it is “free”. Nothing is really free, someone always pays. Aside from my current underemployment, I am usually middle class and part of the burden bearer of those costs for myself and others.
I don’t approve of the conveyor belt. If we ban ads for cigarettes, we should also ban ads for drugs. If we train physicians how to use pharma, we should also train them how to use herbs and be minimally invasive. As far as healthcare costs, everyone needs to share the cost of the system that they choose to take from and there should be a choice as to the type of care they want and not a mandate to follow a particular protocol.
Oh and one final thing along those lines, I am not convinced that the government is the one behind all of this, though they are a player. I believe in following the money. Though I have no idea where that leads. Some say Satan, the Illuminati, or ??? and I have no answer there. No doubt the usual greed, power, control, domination, ambition are factors. This is just my view from my space in the food chain of American Economics. It’s suspicious. We are being duped, one step, one drug at a time and if you take 11 meds a year, you aren’t a big drug user, so no big deal…enjoy your conveyor belt ride.
A little cynical and skeptical today,
Kiki
Here’s a little lighter version of what I am saying that I discovered after I wrote this post and maybe my post is now unnecessary since this says it so well!
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