With the upcoming presidential and congressional election a good deal of attention within the chiropractic profession has been focused on who are the better candidates for the chiropractic profession. I think we are terribly selfish as a profession if we judge who is best to serve the country by who is best for our profession. Granted, many people often see an election as a one-issue election. But can we really compare something like the war on terror which affects all of humanity with who is going to get us the best deal in Medicare? Is whether a politician is pro-chiropractic really as important compared to whether he is pro-freedom, in favor of the United States as a strong independent country and anxious to spread freedom to the rest of the world? Is it more important that he support chiropractic inclusion in veteran’s benefits or support our troops in Iraq? Is being pro-chiropractic more important than being pro-Second Amendment? One national publication urges us to vote for people because they are in favor of chiropractic when there is probably not another issue important to our country on which I would be in agreement with them. Is chiropractic inclusion in third-party pay that important that we should compromise our entire world viewpoint for it? Further, if someone who has a totally different viewpoint of life is pro-chiropractic perhaps we need to re-think our chiropractic. Of course, in all likelihood the politicians care nothing about chiropractic. They just see it as a way of getting a few more votes.
One area of rethinking our chiropractic has to do with whether we want to be part of socialized medicine. There is a philosophy in the country that believes that the government should take care of people’s health needs from cradle to grave despite the fact that it has never succeeded in any country in the world at any time in history. If we have that history, why would we want to be a part of it? It has been bad for the doctors, lowered the quality of health care, and added one more governmental, bureaucratic millstone around the neck of the taxpayer.
Perhaps I am not objective in this issue. I do not need nor do I want government handouts for my chiropractic services. But then neither do I want the government interfering in my right and ability to deliver chiropractic care. Most important I want the ideals and the freedoms of this country to be perpetuated so I have the ability and the freedom to practice chiropractic.
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