Anger Kills Health Care Costs

The Face of Anger

In the Brave New World of nationalized health care the medical-government complex needs to convince us that most illnesses:

1. Can be avoided by "preventative" health care
2. Are exacerbated or initiated by behavioral characteristics
3. Can be ameliorated or treated with "unconventional" therapies -- the kinds that most doctors are not trained in

The common thread? All the above are low-tech, low-cost solutions to health care problems for the government that is paying the bill.

You will see these points driven home in the media in the next several months and years as we move to national health care where low-cost solutions are the goal. For your own good, you should read the articles in full and ignore the headline. Here's why:

Every day the news carries some story to buttress one of the aforementioned health care fallacies, like this one today:

Anger really can kill you, U.S. study shows

...people who had the highest anger-induced electrical instability were 10
times more likely than everyone else to have an arrhythmia in
follow-up, ... the study suggests that anger can be deadly, at
least for people who are already vulnerable to this type of electrical
disturbance in the heart.

Of the group, 7% developed heart disease in
the first five years; 12% showed signs within the first nine years. They were
also more likely to be in a high social class, smoking a couple packs of
cigarettes a day, and have high cholesterol. (italics mine)

This study gets picked up on line and in the news as "anger kills" as you can see from the leader for the cited article. Yet the study only suggests that dangerous heart rhythms may be induced in people who already have severe disease.

Truth is, in these patients (cigarette smokers with high cholesterol!) there are probably a lot of things that may induce rhythm disturbances including burping, surprises, shovelling snow and the doggy position.

Anger?

Please.

But it works for our brave new world of health care. The low cost solution? Anger management.