You own a car, you have insurance, you have belongings and you insure them.

You're health is essential but you only take health insurance since you pay a medicare levy if you dont.

You take the hospital part since you really don't want the bills associated with expensive medical procedures, and of course hope you'll never need it.

And yet the extras part of your insurance cover is nothing like these other insurances. I've never struck anyone who thinks of it in the same way as hospital cover: "I have physiotherapy cover but I hope I never need it". No the general perception is - this extras cover should pay for my health. And bummer, it doesn't. But how can it? The companies that provide insurance need to make money, so if these 'extras' products did cover the full cost, it would cost more than if you simply paid for it yourself.

So how important is your health? Who's responsibility is your good health? If we all expect insurance to pay, guess what - in the end it's us anyway! And then we end up with the American mess where health insurance is so expensive no-one can afford it anyway.

So all this seems quite negative, yet the point is that we all have to take responsibility for our personal health. That means both in an effort to maintain it, and to bear the everyday cost of achieving it. We pay our taxes to help with the expensive stuff - but it's time public health policy started to reflect personal responsibility as a first line of defence. And supported it with sensible help and advice, coming from enlightened doctors, nurses, chiropractors and allied health practitioners. if we don't then the future of health care will be one where you don't have a choice, simply because we (collectively) can no longer afford it.

The following is pulled verbatim from the SMH Sun 30th May. Thank goodness medical science is beginning to realise that whenever possible, natural is the way to go. And to catch up with modern thinking on the cause of allergies and chronic diseases.

What a load of trollop.

Laws limiting the volume of codeine based medication you can buy could be argued for or against. yet the message of this article was that it would lead to increased costs and more inconvenience.

But did you read the heading? They actually mean it. "Greg and Mary Walsh of Concord, who have four children, estimate they use a 12-pack of combination analgesics every week. They buy in packs of 48 because they are cheaper and ''then it's always there'' but will now have to visit a pharmacy almost every week.

''It will lead to us running out,'' Mr Walsh said. ''When it's needed, it won't be there. so you'll have to put up with the pain until it subsides or until you get around to going to the chemist."

This type of comment I think shows that the problems we have with the health system are not limited to the system itself, but the decades of mis-information provided as best care for problems. You would think that this family (and many more like them) should stop and ask - WHY do we need so many drugs? WHAT is causing the symptoms? And actually do something about the problem rather than pretending that drugs are the answer.

"The usual care provided by Australian general practitioners for low back pain does not match the care endorsed in international evidence-based guidelines and may not provide the best outcomes for patients, according to new research published in the February 8 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine."

Low back pain is the 7th most common reason Australians head to the GP, yet this report shows that not only are they typically give the wrong advice, they're given poor advice, and prescribed inappropraite medication the majority of the time.

I do get clients who are actively recommended not to continue with chiropractic care by their GP, despite plenty of evidence that supports it as an appropriate approach for back care. Oddly enough most of these reports focus on pain relief, and then say 'live with the problem', failing to recognise that a well implimented care plan can make a huge difference to how healthy you can be.

Medical researcher NAME in 2003 made the startling discovery that you can predict when a person is going to die based on how far their head pokes forward in poor posture. Essentially the further forward your head is, and the more rounded your shoudlers, the greater the stress on your heart and lungs and the higher the expectation that this will lead to life threatening illness.

Her findings were uncomplicated compared to most medical research and highlight how vital good posture is to allow you body to be healthy.