Medical Benefits: Do They Really Benefit You?

In the last 15 years, I have sought ways to increase energy.  I myself am in very good health, but my busy work schedule and irregular exercise schedule combined to tire me just a little.  I sought some answers.  My understanding of the medical industry at that time was that it was modern and that it could treat almost any ailment from broken legs to cancer to kidney surgery.  I'd heard of people getting by-pass operations, quadruple by-pass operations, heart replacement surgeries.  I mean the industry was doing remarkable things in its ability to prolong people's lives.  Fantastic.  I'd had health insurance, too, from my work, but I rarely, if ever, used it.  It was an amenity that I just never used.  I used it for annual check-ups, thinking that that was what I had to do.  But it proved of little to no benefit, in part, because all the doctors did was prescribe me medication.  Medication worries me.  I've never had good experience from medication.  The one time that I actually took any medications was when a doctor prescribed anti-biotics for me.  I took them, and they did nothing.  In fact, I felt that they almost depleted my immunity.  So for me, the medical industry has a poor track record, and that is based exclusively on my personal exchanges with doctors and their practices.  I would use running, swimming, or basketball as the magic bullet to energize me.  Though I had not read anything directly about it, the medical industry has sold itself to possess state-of-the-art of technology that could treat any condition.  Rhetorically, it works.  People believe that the medical benefits are so prized that they are worth continuing at a horrible job for.  People learn how horrible those benefits are when you go to use them.  You've worked hard.  You've put in your time.  When it comes time for you to tap into those benefits and that medical knowledge that is traded on a division of labor, you're hoping that the doctor is smarter than you on almost anything related to health care.  You are in for a big surprise.  That may be true, but their treatments are often bad, even life-threatening.  A young friend of mine, aged 20, had died from testicular cancer after receiving an avant-garde chemotherapy that Lance Armstrong used to defeat his cancer.  Now that Armstrong has recently come out about doping, I am wondering if the stories told about his victory over testicular cancer weren't lies.  Who knows?  Maybe the companies and cancer treatment centers gain greatly with a high-profile endorsement of their product.  What do you think?  The prescribing doctors were oncologists over at UCLA Medical Center.  The best of the best as they say.  Within a year of his diagnosis, this friend of mine was dead.  He had age on his side.