Up to now, I've not had a strong opinion about physical therapy. It's something I've taken both my kids to due to various sports injuries throughout their lives. I never stopped to question whether they got better as a result of physical therapy or because we "rested, elevated, and iced" and time took care of the rest. I've had some back/sciatica pain for a couple of years now, and after finding it almost impossible to get out of bed some mornings, I decided a trip to the doctor was in order, who in turn sent me to physical therapy. They evaluated me and diagnosed me with - get ready - back pain! Oh, and I have good posture. My "therapy" consists of doing some arm exercises. I don't profess to knowing more than they do, but I told them that moving my arms doesn't hurt my back and they were so impressed by that that they think I should repeat these arm movements every two hours (excuse me everyone at work, I need to stop and lay on the floor and move my arms up and down - sure!). Now the thing is, my doctor knows that a tenz unit has helped this back pain for me before, but she can't prescribe one to me - and why is that? Because my insurance won't cover it unless I go to physical therapy first. So I have to go for sixteen visits there (costing the insurance company and me money), where I will learn to move my arms up and down, after which I will hopefully get the tenz unit. So, for now, I have an opinion on physical therapy - it is a waste of time and money!
So what does physical therapy have to do with the election? Well....the government has gotten so involved in our health care and taken away much of a doctor's ability to make decisions - as in my doctor has to send me to physical therapy before she can prescribe what she knows works - I can't imagine how much worse it is going to get if we go even farther toward socialized medicine. The Karl Marx slogan "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" has recently been rephrased as "spread the wealth around". Communism for Dummies.
