(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)

Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 3)

Over the first two articles, we’ve come to two conclusions:

• 1. Our once magnificent healthcare system is broken.
• 2. Government is the one that broke it (and, amazingly enough, is being asked by the multitude to fix it). 

So, now let’s look at the solution of Universal Healthcare. Basically, this means that Americans would be taxed even more than they currently are, however, at least everyone would have coverage and access to “free*” health care.

Except that what I just said is not completely true. In fact, it’s far from true. Note the italicized word, “access” (I cover the “free*” part at the end of the article). Actually, what people will have is access to a waiting list. They will have access to having a bureaucrat who doesn’t know or love them deciding if the ill they (or their children) are suffering rates a visit to the doctor, an operation or treatment of any kind. There is nothing “conspiracy theory-ish” about this. We know it’s true because we see it regularly within those countries that already have Universal Health Care.

There is a huge difference between access to a list and access to actual health care!

 In a column in the Los Angeles Times, Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon wrote:

Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain’s Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that “access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare.”

Interestingly enough, in Canada, where by law they cannot pay for private medical treatment, the only option for those who either must have an operation or die is often to travel to America.

Of course, once our system is as socialistic as is theirs, that will no longer be an option for them.

Regarding our friends and neighbors to the north, a very key point is that Canada is currently looking at massive changes in their system because, while citizens affected by the long waiting lists are in an uproar, the costs of the system are completely out of control. 

Question: is this really what we want? Are we so anxious to blame a not-guilty party – The Free Enterprise System – that we will actually throw away still another freedom; the freedom to care for ourselves and our loved ones the way we see fit; not the way some faceless bureaucrat sees fit? Do we want our children getting the same expert and loving medical care as did our wounded vets at Walter Reed and similar government-run hospitals?

And, would we really rather see everyone suffer through Universal Healthcare (except the politicians and politically well-connected, of course – they’ll never have to wait on some list) instead of helping everyone by getting the market driven (and very healthy) health care system back? (Remember, we covered caring for the less fortunate in the previous article.)

In the final part of this series, we’ll look at the natural and most practical solution to our Healthcare System woes. 

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*The word, “free” was in quotation marks because nothing is free; you’ll actually be paying more for your own healthcare as well as for others’. Yes, more for your own because it will be run in the typical governmental fashion of high waste, where approximately 70-75 percent out of every dollar will go to administer the system rather than to health care itself. This percentage of waste is within the norm for all government programs.

My amazing and very close friend, Svetlana (Lana) Kim snuck out of Soviet Russia via a ticket she bought on the black market and came to America with exactly $1 (yes, that would be one dollar!) in her pocket and not one word of English in her vocabulary.

Add to that the fact that once she arrived in New York, she discovered that her one contact (whom she didn’t actually personally know) was in California. And, by the time she made her way there, the contact rejected meeting her.

Yet, Lana Kim has achieved success on a level few have experienced (and, fortunately for us all, has documented it in a book entitled, White Pearl And I: A Memoir Of A Political Refugee – motion picture plans currently in development).

Aside from being a major Go-Giver, focusing on adding value to everyone and everything she touches, she also has an amazing attitude.

Nowhere is the embodied more than in her response to an event that took place yesterday.

After taking the train from her home in Washington, D.C. to New York’s Kennedy Airport and meeting up with the group of friends and associates with whom she’d be traveling for Greece, she realized something…she had forgotten her passport.

Yep. Simply forgotten it. As in, “no way was boarding a plane for Greece in three hours.”

Having no one who would be able to find the passport in her home, she knew there was just one thing to do; take the train back to D.C., get the passport, take the train back to fly out the next day.

And, that she did, without a complaint, externally or internally. When she called me this morning on the phone to relate to me her adventure, she was laughing. She told me she made sure to “sleep with my passport last night.” When I congratulated her on her exceptional attitude, she said, “I cannot control the situation but I can control my attitude toward it.” She also said there are lessons to be learned.

Well, the lesson for her might be to remember her passport; but the lesson for me was, “it’s amazing how one’s attitude makes such a difference in terms of problem-solving and peace of mind.”

It would be easy to let a day be ruined by what happened. And, for so many, this would probably be the case, with lots of screaming, shouting, self-blaming, blaming others, etc.

Then again, when someone has had to deal with the adversity that Lana Kim has had to deal with and overcome, it’s very logical that she would see what happened yesterday as an inconvenience as opposed to a tragedy.

Interesting that her attitude for handling this situation summarized her attitude when coming to the U.S. As T. Harv Eker says, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” I would bet that Lana’s positive attitude is a touchstone and foundation for everything she does.

Is it “all in the attitude?” Really, I don’t know. But, I would say that attitude certainly counts for a lot!

{Note from Bob: If you get a chance to read Lana’s book, White Pearl And I, I believe it will make a singficantly positive difference in your life. I know it did in mine!}

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For whatever reason it is, human beings have a strange, often counter-productive relationship with money. Of course, the lack of it can be debilitating to one trying to survive, support a family, thrive and donate to the less fortunate. Thus, it would seem to make sense that the seeking of money through providing value to others and then enjoying its rewards would be very natural. Yet, people will find extremely imaginative ways to sabotage its reception and remain in a financial struggle.

My dear friend, Dixie “Dynamite” Gillaspie, a noted business coach/consultant/speaker in St Louis and continuing student of personal development, has been thinking about this of late and was kind enough to share her thoughts with us:

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In exploring my own attitudes and belief systems about money, I started writing what I thought the people I admire think of money (the people I wish to emulate – not imitate, and whose philosophies and systems I wish to adapt – not adopt) and my journal entry ended with this:

I have come to this understanding of money – it is nothing but a form of energy. We work, we share, we add value in what we do, who we are and what we are willing to put out there. That is energy – it takes energy to do work. More than that, it takes energy to prepare ourselves to be able to perform that work, and the more easily we are to be able to perform that work and the more people who will then benefit from that work, the more energy we will put into the preparation for that work.

It takes energy to create value. And then. we get energy for that value – some of the energy will take the form of money, some will take other forms, but it is all energy. And we will turn that energy into more value – either by spending that money or by sharing that value. Breathe in, breathe out. That is how I am recreating my soulscape today.

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I like it. Since everything is energy, only in different forms, is there any reason to devalue the monetary energy you create through value energy? And, is there any reason not to circulate those forms of energy, being sure that we both give it and receive it (“breathe in, breath out/breathe out, breathe in”) on a continual basis?

What do you think? Feel free to let us know.

{Note: Dixie Gillaspie shares more great insights and observations at her blog . You can also follow her on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/DixieDynamite}

My good friend, successful entrepreneur Teri Nickinello, sent me a link to the following video she found on YouTube.

It was – for lack of a better description – a caricature-istic (yes, I’ve been known to invent words) look at how not only demanding customers and clients can be, but how their expectations of the relationship between value and compensation can be extremely unrealistic.

Basically, they were expecting a real LOT for a very LITTLE.

Now, as you know from reading The Go-Giver, the provider of the product or service should strive to “give more in value than he or she takes in payment.” This simply means that what you provide causes that person to legitimately feel great about exchanging their money for it, while you still make a healthy profit and feel great about the transaction, as well.

The video provides a facetious example of just how much more in value the exceedingly demanding customer might expect (It really was funny. My favorite line was the “line item” suggestion in the restaurant scene.)

I also believe it teaches us many lessons on many levels, and – if I may – I’d like to bring up just a few right here.

Lesson #1 Set The Context of Expectation in Advance: Because some people are simply the type who press for the most in exchange for the least, it’s important that they know exactly what you will and will not do (i.e., let them get away with). Hey, perhaps it’s too bad it need be that way but, since it is, the best thing you can do is to acknowledge it and be proactive about it.

Lesson #2 Work Only With Those You Enjoy Working With: Obviously that is easier said than done, good economy or bad. However, that’s one reason your focus should be on developing a referral-based business. The stronger the referral from someone you enjoy doing business with, the greater the odds those to whom they refer will be just as enjoyable (the saying about “birds of a feather” is often very true).

By the way, the converse is also true in that if you lose your posture and work “on the cheap” or in such a way that you allow yourself to be taken advantage of based on the promise of more work or referrals to their friends, you will most likely be inundated with others who undervalue you, as well (the “birds of a feather” concept runs both ways).

Lesson #3 Know in Advance How You Will Respond When A Customer Does Try And Push The Envelope Past Its Reasonable Limits: While it won’t be as egregious as those in the video it will most likely happen. Rather than have to “react” to this, it will be much more productive for you to imagine possible scenarios in advance and how you will respond to them when they occur.

While sometimes you need to be willing to fire a customer or client, typically, if you’ve taken the proper steps in advance,  that will not happen too, too often.

Providing excellent value does NOT mean being taken advantage of or settling for less than you have earned and communicated.

As Stephen R. Covey says, “Win-Win or no deal.”

(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)

Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 2)

In the previous article, after establishing that our current healthcare system is indeed broken, I asked that we check our premises and, instead of knee-jerkingly blaming the Free-Enterprise System for our healthcare woes and asking for a government solution (which is what Universal Health Care would be – the government in complete control of your and your children’s health care – though solution would certainly be an incorrect word), that we go back and look at its true cause.

The question is: is it the Free Enterprise System that destroyed our health care system?

Let’s take a quick look back about 50 or so years ago. At that time, our U.S. healthcare system was basically market-driven. What were the results? Well, let’s see; practically all Americans who wanted health insurance had it. It was affordable. Doctor’s offices weren’t reminiscent of Grand Central Station. In fact, doctors actually were known to make house calls. People who were less fortunate financially could always find a doctor or hospital that allowed them to pay via sliding scale. Many towns had free and low cost clinics where doctors and nurses volunteered several hours per week. And, hospitals? Well, if you recall, practically every major city had at least one charity hospital. Not too shabby, right?

Was anyone ever “left out in the cold?” Unfortunately, yes. Utopia – even in our great country – has never been an option. However, when it came to our Healthcare system, it was pretty darn close. Certainly more so than at any other place and time in history before or since.

And, then, a funny thing happened on the way to our healthcare system breakdown . . .

Government got involved. Really involved. I mean, really, really involved. As usual, they decided they knew more about how the market operates than . . . the market.

So, between excessive regulation of private health insurance, coverage mandates, lack of price competition for medical services, Medicare, Medicaid, government-forced reliance on third-party payers, more rules, more regulations, more taxes, etc. we have been driven into a system in which far too many American families go without any kind of health coverage because they simply cannot afford it.

Was this government’s purpose? Surely not. It’s just what they do. They take either non-existent, slight problems, or even legitimate problems, and they turn them into national disasters.

So, now, government is being asked to come to the rescue, and they will gladly oblige. Did you notice last year’s Presidential Campaign? Candidates Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Romney (yes, Republicans, too; plenty of them) and others. They all had the government solution to your healthcare woes.

Irony Break: putting this into healthcare vernacular, could we not say that government has broken our legs and is now being asked to fix them? Sure, they’ll give us crutches and then say, “See, if it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t be able to walk.”

The point: Free Enterprise did not give us our current “Sicko” healthcare system; government intervention did.

Again, let’s think about this. Government caused the problem, and we want government to fix the problem that they caused? Does that make sense?

In the next article, we’ll take a look at Universal Healthcare and see what kind of results we could expect, based on the experience of other countries that have tried it.