30 November 2013
The website to implement the new tax system devised by Barrack O'bama is, according to the White House, going to be “working smoothly for the vast majority of users by the end of November.” After the predicted abysmal roll-out in October 2013 which found taxpayers unable to access the reduced choice for medical intervention payment plans O'bama dismissed the problems. He cited that worldwide private corporation Apple was performing no better at serving consumers who voluntarily chose to access its website. O'bama asked Americans to, "Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it." The difference here being that Apple responded in a consumer friendly manner.
I have previously written about A Healthy perspective on Health Care and O'bama providing to consumers the medical intervention limitations and cost increases they have demanded. I won't rehash that now but instead will just celebrate the implementation of O'bama's plan.
It may seem counter to my classic liberal ideology to celebrate such a reduction in choice and increase in costs but as a whole I feel that this is a wonderful outcome for the American people. As had been planned through the careful and precise wording of the legislation embraced by both factions of the Incumbent Party -- republicans and democrats – Americans recently began receiving notices of cancellation of their existing medical care payment plans. This was necessary to achieve the desired result of reduced choice – or liberty – of Americans.
As I said two weeks ago, “Medical services are divided into three categories: trauma care, sick care and health maintenance. In the field of debate over this issue most people have been guided into the fallacious belief that there exist three options for health care: buy health care insurance, pay cash, or go without needed treatment.” I then went on to explain that there is a fourth option – a healthy lifestyle – which is the health plan I use. I believe it is the best plan. Low cost, improved productivity, greater choice and a more fulfilling life. I have not once complained about O'bama altering my healthcare options.
O'bama has, through force of law, NOT taken over healthcare as has been claimed by so many. Rather he has encouraged choice in healthcare. A new paradigm of choice. Americans are being pushed into choosing between “healthcare” and medical intervention services for sale. Still, I do acknowledge that O'bama's plan is contrary to the teachings of nearly every major religion and the foundation of our constitutional republic. That is, we are not individually endowed to steal from our neighbors for our personal gain. I have no authority over your personal decisions about health care nor do you over me. Since we are a country founded upon a government of the people the government, just as each of us individually, has no right to steal – tax – from you your wealth for the benefit of ourselves. But alas we see that it is being done with the consent of the American people who elected the Republicans and Democrats that are ready and willing to deprive them of their right to choose – liberty. The ends it seems do justify the means.
The ultimate ends from this O'bama plan will be a healthier society. This is why I encourage you to embrace O'bama's plan to reduce medical intervention options and availability. It will lead to healthier outcomes. I have experienced it. I have lived it. I have seen the results.
I was in a federal prison for about a year which offered similar medical intervention care. Everyday the doors to the housing units were opened and inmates could head to the hospital to get in line for an appointment that day. Those with infirm bodies could pay someone else to secure a place in line. Once the schedule of appointments was filled for the day the door was closed and those remaining had to try again the next day. Or did they? There was another option which we collectively realized – health care.
I have never seen a population as concerned with health care as prison inmates. Regular exercise was a chosen routine by nearly everyone. Healthful food selections were also common although there were still those who chose to eat processed garbage made to appear as food. Even such mundane practices as brushing teeth, washing hands, maintaining clean environments were practiced with a near religious zeal. Mediation, self-education, philosophy discussions, spiritual practices and other routines that lead to healthful outcomes were common among inmates either individually or in groups. Overall, being in prison increases life expectancy. Clearly we had an expectancy that if we wanted to be healthy it was upon us to ensure that, as our choice was either take what intervention treatment we could get on a first-come, first-served basis or prevent ailments. But this is that to which I consented.
You may hardly think that a person consents to the conditions in prison but when compared to O'bama there is no distinction. I participated in the judicial process and was eventually duped by an incompetent attorney into accepting a plea agreement. The other option was to flee the jurisdiction. Thus, I consented. Similarly, O'bama was elected by a process originating with votes by the populace. Those who voted for O'bama have consented to be bound by his edicts. Those who voted for an alternate candidate participated in the process knowing the varying potential outcomes and, thus, consented. Those who didn't vote or express an opinion, by default, consented. Thus, everyone consented to this deprivation of choice.
This consent to simplicity should be welcomed and vigorously embraced. Health care options under O'bama are being reduced to two polar options – wellness or sustained sickness. I choose wellness. Now I am off to a 50+ mile round trip bike ride.
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©2008, 2013 Stuart Showalter, LLC. Permission is granted to all non-commercial entities to reproduce this article in it's entirety with credit given.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
O'bama-Tax Medical Intervention Cost Inflation and Consumer Choice Reduction Act [a.k.a. Affordable Care Act] website to be functioning today
Friday, November 22, 2013
A Healthy perspective on Health Care
22 November 2013 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Make a suggestion for me to write about.
Medical services are divided into three categories: trauma care, sick care and health maintenance. In the field of debate over this issue most people have been guided into the fallacious belief that there exist three options for health care: buy health care insurance, pay cash, or go without needed treatment.
This is precisely the mindset that has increased the reliance upon and supposed need for medical services interventions. That is, the human brain engages itself in a guided imagery – what it believes to be true is that to which it will attempt to conform itself. This is how placebos are effective. Cognitive dissonance on the other hand is the uncomfortable state experienced by the mind when a statement conflicts with a reality. Essentially this is the weight of consciousness seeking redemption for a lie. The danger in cognitive dissonance is how it functions in the subconscious.
A healthy individual who purchases health insurance coverage but does not use the medical services will likely experience cognitive dissonance. “I bought the insurance because I need. I have not been injured. Thus, I must have an ailment.” An argument can be made that the purchaser is receiving the benefit of the peace of mind of being insured. But most people do not view insurance in that abstract sense. Rather it is viewed as covering a forthcoming need.
This is illustrated by a friend of mine who was recently in a slight collision with another vehicle that dinged a door. I suggested that they not file a claim but settle it in a cash transaction. She objected saying, “I paid for the insurance, I am going to use it!” In a much broader example I use the Social Security Insurance program. This insurance program was established to provide living expense payments to people who outlived their life expectancy and had depleted their retirement savings. Yet ask anyone buying this insurance if they plan to collect on it and you will likely find the answer to be yes. This is because people who pay for insurance do so with the intention of collecting on it.
Thus a person who says “I am healthy” or “I live a healthful lifestyle” is likely to experience cognitive dissonance when paying for the sick care insurance coverage. This is because there is only three ways to spend money on health care - injury, illness or prevention. But as we all know prevention is very cheap – much less than the premiums. Thus to alleviate the dissonance – the conflict between wanting to be healthy and spending the insurers' money on medical interventions – a person who pays for health insurance coverage must become ill or injured.
When this is coupled with directed thought it is clear that the best health care coverage is not to have health insurance coverage. We are all where we are in life based upon decisions made. Every cell in our body is a thinking organism that attempts to organize itself to comport with its' thinking. This is the basis of spontaneous remission, prayer healing and meditative well-being. Those who want to be healthy can be. Believers who trust that their creator was a perfect entity that endowed their bodies with the ability to defend against ailments, heal itself and propagate its own wellness have attained well-being.
This has been demonstrated through the correlation between health insurance coverage and medical interventions. Those who are covered use medical services at a rate significantly higher than those who are not covered. Lack of coverage often leads to more healthy outcomes.
Those who wish to fumble around a non-functioning website may do so. Those who wish to endure the uncertainty and anxiety associated with having a policy canceled may do so. Those who wish to perpetuate their ailments by being stressed over these situations may do so. As for me I have chosen real health care.
As an adult I have always had an affordable, effective and comprehensive health plan. That is, first and foremost, I believe that I am responsible for my well-being. I engage in what I believe is a near sufficient amount of exercise, I eat real food, I live morally, and I maintain an attitude that I am healthy.
Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.
Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions. 
Friday, March 8, 2013
Obesity as a Factor in Indiana Child Custody Decisions
The factors that are considered in child custody decisions cut a swath across a broad range in pursuit of the best interest of the child. The minimum factors that a court must consider are found under IC 31-17-2-8 and the companion paternity statute 31-14-13-2. Specifically, factor 6 relates to the health of the children.
I have been building cases to help parents obtain custody decisions to benefit the children by using the obesity of the children or the other parent as an aggravating factor towards his or her fitness as a parent. Empirical data is suggesting that overweight or excessively fat parents are more likely to harm or neglect their children than those who maintain a healthy weight or fat percentage. The harm or neglect is not just related to the weight of the child. The UCL Institute of Child Health in London notes that usually obesity will be only one of a number of factors causing concern along with poor school attendance, exposure to or involvement in violence, mental health problems of parents and emotional or behavioural difficulties.
One of the eight factors in child custody decisions, 31-17-2-8(6), provides that the court shall consider "[t]he mental and physical health of all individuals involved." Thus the physical health of the parent and the children are factors that the court must consider. This is a point that has often been sidestepped in child-custody decisions but is now gaining greater attention and consideration coinciding with national debate about health and well-being issues.
If a child is oversized and one of the parents is also then I can establish the likelihood of a causal link and argue that the oversized parent is responsible for the harm to the child. This harm comes in various forms including, physical, emotional and social as found by the UCL Institute and other studies.
I have recently offered to help the obese mother of our son shed the extra pounds. Rather than use that against her in a custody proceeding I prefer to take the proactive step of assisting her as one of my Life Coaching partners. After all, she is the mother of our son who lives with her and anything that can help improve her health I believe will provide a related benefit to him. Of course I am doing this without a request that she compensate me.
My focus for this article is going to be on children and women. This is not based upon any desire to alleviate men of their responsibility towards maintaining a reasonable fat percentage. Quite to the contrary I am saving my harshest tirade for the ignominious waistlines of men, whom I will propound in a future posting should be thinner than women. Rather, it is women who are overwhelmingly responsible for the day-to-day care of children and food purchasing decisions.
The American epidemic of children being oversized can be directly attributable to the purchasing habits of women according to marketing research. This is primarily due to the busy lifestyles that befall the modern woman. This neglect of self and children is becoming the new cigarette smoking and is more often becoming a factor in child custody decisions.
The issue of size or weight does not rest solely on the physical attributes associated with the child and parent. I can extrapolate a greater association to mental fitness of the parent and espouse that there must then be a corresponding malaise or neglect towards other factors affecting the best interest of the child such as those which were indicated by the UCL Institute.
A parent who does not care enough to properly maintain his or her physical health and subsequently that of the child is going to more likely be neglectful other important areas. If the child is obese but the parent isn't then there is a discipline problem or, as is often occurring, a parent using "food" as a tool for gaining favour from the child torn between parents or as a substitute for a meaningful relationship with the child. Parents who fail to maintain proper discipline of their children subject them to increased risk of teenage pregnancy, incarceration, drug abuse and many other ills known to beset children lacking parental influence or proper supervision. As you can see there is much more to obesity than just the weight or size itself that can influence a child custody decision. Parents therefore need to carefully consider the ramifications of their child's weight and how to best mitigate the negative impression this can have during child custody litigation.
Get Proactive -
The good news is that it is not a hopeless cause although maintenance of a healthy weight may seem so, especially for those trying to manage a hectic lifestyle that includes job demands, familial obligations and managing one's own health. With proper guidance and a plan these areas and more are easily manageable.
There has been a paradigm shift not only in the family structure but the dynamics of responsibility in post dissolution households. Women are now facing greater challenges than ever before. Wages for women as well as occupational demands are now exceeding that of men in many geographical areas of the United States. This has not been without an effect on the women and the children.
Childhood obesity has been at the forefront of national health concerns for the past few years. Even with such attention, the rate for girls has remained flat while the rate for boys has increased over the past five years. Weight mismanagement is the new smoking. But unlike smoking -- which has falsely gained wide-acceptance as being an addiction not within the control of the user -- excessive fat gain is now known to also be a conscious decision. People don't just become fatter or catch obesity. Every calorie of food that enters the body is based upon a purposeful decision just like the effort that smokers go through to make their conscious decision to smoke each cigarette.
People who are obese often engage in various denial based claims for their condition. These are no more valid than those specious excuses invoked by smokers. Both are based on nothing more than willpower and the lack of acceptance of responsibility by those people.
As humans, like most species, we are endowed with an innate sense of self-preservation. This can easily be found in the flight-or-fight response to dangerous situations. The amount of planning and willpower that it takes to overcome our instinct is aptly demonstrated by those who pursue a more expedient demise. Those who have been successful in committing suicide have often failed in the past and have put a great amount of deliberation, planning and willpower, into completing the act. The same is true for those who seek to hasten their deaths through smoking or unhealthy caloric consumption.
For a clear demonstration of willpower watch the assassination attempt of President Ronald Reagan. A local police officer ducks for cover but a Secret Service agent steps forward and broadens his body in an attempt to catch bullets intended for Reagan. It takes an awesome amount of willpower to endanger ones own life in this manner. The Secret Service agent who had gone through years of training was able to do so. The police officer however, even though purported to risk his own life to protect and serve was unable to overcome that innate self-preservation instinct and attempt to protect President Reagan.
Other excuses for not maintaining a healthy lifestyle that make proper weight and fat management possible simply run the gamut from medical conditions to lack of availability of nutritional food. Yet it is often the decisions to consume non-foods or a poor diet that produce the adverse medical conditions or result in retailers choosing not to stock healthful foods. None of those excuses are greater than the will power or desire that humans possess when they seek to harm themselves such as the elaborate efforts they go through to get money for and then acquire cigarettes. If that same type of dedication was redirected towards maintaining a healthy diet then obesity would not be an issue.
I make no contention that it is a simple process to change the unhealthy and harmful eating habits that lead to obesity. After all, consumers have engaged in years of training to gain the willpower necessary to overcome the innate sense of self-preservation and instead consume edible garbage disguised as food. This has mostly be done through the direct and indirect promotion of garbage consumption as demonstrated on television commercials and programs where dialogue or product placement reinforces unhealthy decisions. Most of the marketing efforts by so-called "food" processors has been aimed at the impressionable minds of young children. The medium that regulates the exposure of children to these harmful messages is – the parents. When parents fail to mitigate this exposure and even participate in supplying the garbage to the children, that is neglect.
Child Neglect cases
Prior to becoming a more common contention in child custody battles involving divorced parents or paternity cases the “childhood obesity is neglect” issue was raised by governmental agencies charged with protecting children from abuse or neglect.
"Parental failure to provide their children with adequate treatment for a chronic illness -- asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, etc -- is a well accepted reason for a child protection registration for neglect," says the UCL Institute. Adding obesity, even though equally harmful, has not become as widely accepted yet. Dr Russell Viner of the UCL Institute says it is difficult to establish when obesity shades into neglect and becomes an issue for child protection. Viner placates some of the responsibility for the neglectful parents because the pressure on everyone to eat too much and exercise too little is so powerful. These factors are so strong that "for some parents, it is very difficult to stop their child gaining weight". It is this type of attitude that can undermine efforts to ensure that children get the needed help to fight obesity facilitated by neglectful parents.
He also pointed to the strong associations between food, feeding, caring and love stating, "[E]ating is a pleasure and you want to give your children pleasure." The problem here is often exacerbated in divorce situations where waring or high conflict parents often battle for the affections of the children. Children need to be shown real love and caring by parents through meaningful interactions not by the substitution of real food with playful, tasty and fun-to-eat garbage made to appear as though it were food.
JAMA states that, "mandated reporter laws may obligate physicians to contact child protective services in the cases of children for whom chronic parental neglect has resulted in severe weight-related health complications." But the UCL Institute says, "Removing children from their parents may not help obesity. There are few data on the weight of children in public care."
A recent study found that 37% of children in care were overweight or obese – but almost all of them had put on weight after they were put into foster care demonstrating that removal from the parents did not resolve the problem. Unlike these placement cases where the child is removed from the parents and the neglect is allowed to continue, child custody placement between parents raises a different issue. In this instance the court is not being asked to consider whether the child should continue to be under the care and supervision of the parents but, rather, which parent can provide the better structure and environment upon which to attempt to ensure that the obesity issue with the child is more likely to be ameliorated.
Oversized parents -
In examining childhood obesity and neglect in general from a preventative standpoint can we make a correlation between oversized parents and neglect? "As in all areas of child health, we have a duty to be open to the possibility of child neglect or abuse in any form," concedes the UCL Institute.
Courts, practitioners and litigants should all elevate the level of priority assigned to the mandatory consideration of "[t]he mental and physical health of all individuals involved" by focusing on the easy measures of physical health. These include BMI and basic vitals along with other measures such as the US Army fitness test. Obesity in a parent and the correlation to the children should be carefully examined and given greater attention and weight by the courts.
In following the development of obesity in parents there is well established evidence that environmental factors are a significant contributor. Essentially saying that the environment in which a child is raised will play a great role in whether the child becomes obese. This does not obviate the decision making power of the child as an adult as whether to engage in a healthy lifestyle and choose healthful foods. However, the child raised in an unhealthy environment with an obese parent will face a greater challenge to becoming a healthy adult once weened from the support and control of the parent.
While some children can thrive and develop healthfully while in the care of an unhealthy parent, few do. This is easily observable. When I am out in the community at eating establishments, school events, the library or other locations where children gather I fix upon an obese child and then try to observe the child reuniting with a parent. In very near to every incident the parent is also obese.
Conclusion -
Obese parents in general are harmful to children especially when given overwhelming control over the children. It has been established that obese parents are more neglectful to children than healthful parents. The long-term health and well-being of children is at significant risk when custody and placement is awarded to an obese parent.
Judicial officers are gradually becoming more attentive to this issue as national attention focuses on health and well-being. With proper counseling attorneys and litigants can also enlighten courts to the harmful effects of placement with obese parents. The best interest of children demands that weight and BMI be an elevated priority in child custody decisions.
If you are involved in a child custody dispute with an oversized parent or your child is oversized then it is imperative that you properly articulate this necessary consideration to the court.
Conversely, if you are the oversized parent then it is of greater importance that you set aside your own desires and focus on the best interest of your child by engaging in practices that improve your health and well-being as well as that of the children.
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Make a suggestion for me to write about.
Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.
Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions.
