It is sad to see so many people being misled and defrauded over this issue, and I don't have any helpful answers for that one. Harsh as it sounds, however, each person is ultimately responsible for what they accept to believe and act on.

But there is hope. In addition to the millions who have become active in their own health via herbs, diet and fitness, there is a growing movement all over the world to seek spiritual and emotional health along side physical wellness - very different than mere absence of disease symptoms which, as you pointed out, is the usual goal of modern Western healthcare today.

Wellness is a state of optimal being, both in body and spirit/energy state. Mere physical imperfections are encountered from this wholistic center and, in most cases, either eliminated or made irrelevant to overall health.

One fact always stands out for me when talking to those who have their trust in purely physical medicine (which actually includes most psychiatry). Much of western medicine is geared toward the absolute denial of either wellness or the natural and inevitable end of life, at least in this body. Yet much of what they call "treatment" actually can destroy true health and shorten life considerably. But you can't usually get any of them to even contemplate it, of course. Those of us who seek real health, wellness and true healing are the idiotic whackos...

I don't need or want "health care" for anything short of a broken leg or serious trauma. Even then, if I was able to think about options, I'd be reluctant to place myself back into the hands of the standard medical system.

Of course, this gives me even greater incentive to do whatever it takes to avoid having to make that choice.