The vast majority of Americans get their healthcare through managed care. What this giant system in effect does is leave out providers like me, who can't get a job there. They need care providers, but they won't hire naturopaths UNLESS we have another degree in something more conventional. What's especially insulting is that virtually everyone thinks that they know more about holistic healthcare than a naturopath. As if the years I've invested were for naught. In retrospect, it was clearly a mistake.
I went into naturopathic medicine because the conventional healthcare system failed me. An N.D. was the first person to actually help me, and another N.D. was the first one to actually understand and diagnose my problem. I didn't know that this credential would get me exactly nowhere in the "modern" medical system in the U.S.. I didn't know that chiropractors and acupuncturists have better luck getting paid by insurances.
There has been a lot of writing about the Art of Medicine. And there's also a lot of noise about the Science that underlies Evidence Based Medicine. Which evidence will you accept? All this noise tends to bypass the question of truth in all its complexity. In today's post-modern culture, truth is a fuzzy thing, unclear, unknowable, subjective and slippery. In today's culture, the only evidence that counts is either double-blinded placebo-controlled studies done by pharmaceutical companies, OR your personal experience. It's nonsense.
What is true? It is true that we are each individuals, with different genetics, environments, and behaviors. We humans all share some basic physiology, and our anatomy maps to our species. It is also true that to be truly healthy we need more than what our commercialized medical system can offer.
A true student of medicine knows the magnitude of the challenge. There is more to know about human health and illness than any one person can know. Humans are inherently biased and susceptible to a wide range of delusions and denial. Businesses are not human and do not care about health. Profits are their motivation. Whether you think of medicine as an art or a science, you probably know that our modern money-grubbing mega-businesses are failing us. What you may not realize is that by paying for a particular insurance, you trap yourself in that dysfunctional system. If you have no money for other kinds of self-care, you get what managed care offers, regardless of how inhuman it might be.
Insurance is not healthcare. Insurance is a gamble, a bet. Insurance is paying in advance for what you hope you don't need. Seeking the care of a human that will listen to you and actually cares about your wellbeing, well, hardly anybody does that. It is beyond me why people place their trust in mega-businesses instead of each other.