On 2/3/2014 11:08 AM, Peter wrote:
It depends who is defining "healthy". Your definition and the insurance
company's definition might vary. And, is someone who is "disabled" or
even "crippled" necessarily unhealthy?

Speaking as a MD, I believe that if someone is taking prescription
medication for a chronic condition, and that condition is being well
controlled (no medication side effects and no detectable damage to any
organ system from the chronic condition), that person should be
considered healthy. (Examples might include well controlled high blood
pressure and well controlled high blood cholesterol if they were
diagnosed and managed soon after onset - among some other chronic
conditions.) I regard those situations as no different than a person who
requires prescription corrective lenses to see clearly with no evidence
of other ocular abnormality.

And, on the other hand, someone may be taking no prescription
medications because they have a serious medical problem that just has
not become clinically evident (such as early adult onset diabetes or
early stage hepatitis C). Also, some people with chronic mental illness
either may be undiagnosed (and therefore untreated), or may refuse to
take their medications. Those individuals are most certainly not healthy.

I think there are a lot of conditions where the
body doesn't work properly, but medications can
make up for that. Allergies, diabetes, chronic
pain, migraines, etc. I like your view point,
that in many cases that medicated people can
be "healthy".

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Christopher A. Young
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