It’s Time to Change American Disease-Management into a
Health-Fostering System
March 18, 2013
Story at-a-glance
The US does not have a health care system; we have a
disease-management system that is dependent on expensive
drugs and invasive surgeries. It’s a system rooted in an
ideal of maximized profits, opposed to helping people
maintain or regain their health
The US spends more on health care than the next 10 biggest
spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K.,
Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia, yet the US ranks
last in health and mortality analysis of 17 developed
nations
Integrative medicine (IM) is a better alternative to the
current system, as it offers a combination of conventional
medical therapies and complementary or alternative therapies
"for which there is some high-quality scientific evidence of
safety and effectiveness"
The Affordable Health Care Act is likely to make matters far
worse rather than better, as the Act does not include any
strategies to prevent illness. Nor does it contain any
measures to rein in or reduce out-of-control health care
costs related to overcharges. Instead it expands an already
flawed model of “care” that has been and continues to be one
of the leading causes of both death and bankruptcy in the US
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I’ve recently written a couple of articles about the
exorbitant
cost of medical care in the US, which is incompatible with
the poor health outcomes of Americans at large.
Americans pay the most for but reap the least
amount of benefits from their
health care, compared to other industrialized nations.
Overcharging and over-treating are two factors contributing to
this enormous problem.
Andrew Weil, author of You Can't Afford to Get Sick: Your
Guide to Optimum Health and Health Care, recently jumped
into the fray with an article on CNN1
and a full one-hour long CNN documentary. The documentary is
called Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare,
which CNN premiered on March 10. Weil writes:
“The most insistent political question of the past
four years has been: How can more Americans get access to
medical care?
The federal response was the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act. Better known as 'Obamacare,' it is a
complex mix of insurance changes and tax credits. When the
act takes effect on January 1, 2014, it will provide access
to insurance to about 30 million people who currently don't
have it.
Unfortunately, that was the wrong question. So the
looming 'answer' is wrong as well. Here's the right
question: How can we improve medical care so that it's worth
extending it to more people? In other words, how can we
create a health care system that helps people become and
stay healthy?”
Disease-Management versus Health Care
I could not agree more with Weil’s statement that the US does
not have a health care system; we have a disease-management
system.
It’s a system that is wholly dependent on expensive drugs and
invasive surgeries, opposed to preventive measures and simpler,
less expensive treatment alternatives. In short, it’s a system
rooted in an ideal of maximized profits, opposed to helping
people maintain or regain their health.
The majority of the diseases we’re trying to “manage” in this
manner are lifestyle-related, and if you don’t address this root
cause, you’ll never get better. You’re just paying for
overpriced band-aids that do absolutely nothing to fix the
underlying cause.
As Weil states:
“Making this system more accessible by passing costs
to taxpayers will simply spread its failures more broadly.”
Like myself, Weil promotes integrative medicine (IM) as a
better alternative to the current system. IM offers a
combination of conventional medical therapies and complementary
or alternative therapies "for which there is some high-quality
scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness."
Placing greater emphasis on prevention, IM fosters long-term
health, and when disease does set in, conventional drug and
surgery approaches are used sparingly and/or as a last resort.
Our current system does the exact opposite. Drugs and surgery
are employed FIRST, and then, when the patient has exhausted all
conventional avenues, he or she will sometimes turn to
alternative therapies or nutritional interventions out of sheer
desperation, on their own (and at their own expense).
Frequently this is what ends up saving that person’s life...
Unfortunately, many have been financially ruined by the time
they’ve wound their way through the conventional system.
Escape Fire takes a deeper look at the problems
inherent with our medical system; the cause of the problems and
its devastating effects, and provides some hopeful solutions.
Weil issued the following highlights from the film:
The torturous journey of Sgt. Robert Yates, an
injured veteran wounded in Afghanistan. He was prescribed a
shopping bag full of prescription medications that left him
broken and miserable in body, mind and spirit. Watching
Yates begin to regain his health through gentle, low-cost
therapies, including meditation and acupuncture, is
profoundly moving.
A look at the revolutionary Safeway Healthy Measures
Program. It gives the supermarket chain's employees
financial incentives for taking responsibility for their own
health, decreasing Safeway's insurance costs significantly
while improving participants' well-being.
The dramatic story of Dr. Erin Martin, an Oregon
primary care physician fed up with being pushed to treat
patients faster and faster to boost clinic profits. She
enrolled in the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine's
Fellowship Program to find a better way, explaining that
"I'm not interested in getting my productivity up -- I'm
interested in helping patients."
Why the Affordable Health Care Act is Unlikely to Benefit Your
Health
Last fall, I gave a presentation at Harper College, in which
I discussed the Affordable Health Care Act, and why it’s likely
to make matters far worse rather than better. It’s important to
understand that guaranteed health insurance does NOT equate to
guaranteed health care.
A major part of the problem is that the Act does not include
any strategies designed to actually prevent illness. It also
does not contain any measures to rein in or reduce
out-of-control health care costs related to overcharges. Instead
it expands an already flawed model of “care” that has been and
continues to be a leadingcause of both death
and bankruptcy in the US.
For example:
Americans spend twice as much on health care per capita
than any other country in the world; in fact according to a
series of studies by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co, the
US spends more on health care than the next 10 biggest
spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China,
the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain, and Australia.
Despite that, we
rank dead last in terms of
quality of care among industrialized countries, and
Americans are far sicker and live shorter lives than people
in other nations
A review of U.S. healthcare expenses by the Institutes
of Medicine2
last year revealed that 30 cents of every dollar spent on
medical care is wasted, adding up to $750 billion annually.
Exorbitant hospital costs are a leading cause of this
overspending
According to a 2011 report by the global consulting firm
Milliman, annual healthcare costs for the average American
family of four, if covered by a preferred provider
organization, is still a staggering $19,3933
As opposed to other countries, American laws prevent the
government from restraining drug prices. Federal law even
prevents the single largest drug buyer - Medicare - from
negotiating drug prices
Overall, Americans pay 50 percent more than
other countries for identical drugs. This year alone, the US
will spend more than $280 billion on prescription drugs. If
Americans paid the same prices other countries pay for the
same products, we’d save about $94 billion
a year
We Need a Whole New System of Medicine
When it comes to medical charges, you the buyer are
completely separated from the seller or provider. There’s
absolutely no market feedback to regulate and control the prices
that are charged, whether they are related to medications or
hospital/treatment charges. For the most part, drug makers and
hospitals are allowed to charge as much as they want, which
plays a large role on why these charges have gotten so
outrageously out of control. This simply does not happen in
countries outside of the US.
As a result, more than half, or approximately 60 percent,
of all personal bankruptcies in the US are related to medical
bills. Even more remarkably, the majority of those bankruptcies
are among people WITH health insurance... Weil writes:
“The film [Escape Fire] takes its name from the
practice of setting a small fire to clear out nearby brush,
allowing a fast-advancing forest fire to pass by harmlessly.
Will we be sufficiently clear-eyed and rational to take a
similarly bold action to avoid disaster wrought by our
dysfunctional health care system? I hope so. In the film, I
say, 'The present system doesn't work, and it's going to
take us down. We need a whole new kind of medicine.'"
This new system needs to address preventive strategies, and
allow for less expensive, less invasive and more
health-promoting alternatives as the first line of treatment.
This automatically means reduced profits for the medical
industry as a whole, but the pharmaceutical industry in
particular would have to relinquish its grasp on its greatest
cash cow, the American drug consumer.
When you consider how far Big Pharma has gone to manipulate
the political system to its advantage, lobbying for laws to
protect and bolster its profits even to the detriment of the
country as a whole, this is not going to happen overnight. But
you don’t have to wait for the system to change. You can take
control of your own health in the meantime, and proactively work
to protect not only your life but your pocketbook as well. At
the end of this article, I will list a few of my top healthy
lifestyle considerations, the most important of which is
proper food choices.
Most of the Leading Causes of Death are Preventable
Still, there is light at the end of the tunnel because you
CAN take control of your health - you don't have to listen to
and abide by this system that makes and keeps you sick in order
to make multinational corporations wealthy.
The majority of deaths are due to chronic, not acute,
disease. And most
chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes,
and obesity, are largely preventable with simple lifestyle
changes. Even infectious diseases like the flu can often be
warded off by a healthy way of life. Just imagine the lowered
death toll, not to mention costs to the economy, if more people
decided to take control of their health … heart disease and
cancer alone accounted for 47 percent of deaths in the
United States in 2010, and there are many strategies you can
implement to lower your risk of these diseases.
The added bonus to this is that the healthier you are, the
less you will need to rely on conventional medical care, which
is a
leading cause of death. So what does a "healthy lifestyle"
entail? The following is a short list of the basics expounded
upon in my
nutrition plan:
Proper Food Choices
For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which
to avoid, see my
nutrition plan. It's available for free, and is perhaps
one of the most comprehensive and all-inclusive guides on a
healthy lifestyle out there. Generally speaking, you should
be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic,
unprocessed foods that come from healthy, sustainable,
ideally local, sources.
For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want
to eat a good portion of your
food raw. Nearly as important as knowing which foods to
eat more of is knowing which foods to avoid, and topping the
list is fructose.
Sugar, and
fructose in particular, can act as a toxin in and of
itself when consumed in excess, and as such drive multiple
disease processes in your body, not the least of which is
insulin resistance, a major cause of accelerated aging and
virtually all chronic disease.
For most people (although there are clearly individual
differences), a diet high in healthful fats (as high as
50-70 percent of the calories you eat), moderate amounts of
high quality protein, which is far less than the average
amount most people eat, with the bulk of carbohydrates
coming from vegetables and very low or no carbohydrates from
grains and sugars, will set you on the right track toward
health.
Comprehensive Exercise Program, including
High-Intensity Exercise
Even if you're eating the healthiest diet in the world,
you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of
health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which
means including not only core-strengthening exercises,
strength training, and stretching but also high-intensity
activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type
training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which
is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor. I've
discussed the importance of Peak Fitness for your health on
numerous occasions, so for more information, please review
this previous
article.
Stress Reduction and Positive Thinking
You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing
the emotional component of your health and longevity, as
your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical
disease -- from heart disease and depression, to arthritis
and cancer. Effective coping mechanisms are a major
longevity-promoting factor in part because stress has a
direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many
of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every
day. Meditation, prayer, energy psychology tools such as the
Emotional Freedom Technique, social support and exercise
are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional
and mental equilibrium.
Optimize Vitamin D with Proper Sun Exposure
We have long known that it is best to get your
vitamin D from appropriate sun exposure during
times when UVB rays are present. Vitamin D plays an
important role in preventing numerous illnesses ranging from
cancer to the
flu.
The important factor when it comes to vitamin D is your
serum level, which should ideally be between 50-70 ng/ml
year-round. Sun exposure or a safe tanning bed is the
preferred method for optimizing vitamin D levels, but a
vitamin D3 supplement can be used when necessary. Most
adults need about 8,000 IU's of vitamin D a day to achieve
serum levels above 40 ng/ml, which is still just below the
minimum recommended serum level of 50 ng/ml.
Be aware that if you take supplemental vitamin D, you
also need to make sure you're getting enough
vitamin K2, as these two nutrients work in tandem to
ensure calcium is distributed into the proper areas in your
body. Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the
symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate
calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries.
While the ideal or optimal ratios between vitamin D and
vitamin K2 have yet to be elucidated,
Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue, author of Vitamin K2 and the
Calcium Paradox: How a Little Known Vitamin Could Save Your
Life, suggests that for every 1,000 IU's of vitamin D
you take, you may benefit from about 100 micrograms of K2,
and perhaps as much as 150-200 micrograms (mcg).
Fermented vegetables can be a great source of vitamin K
if you ferment your own using the proper starter culture. We
recently had samples of high-quality fermented organic
vegetables made with our specific starter culture tested,
and a two to three ounce serving contained about 500 mcg of
vitamin K.
High Quality Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats
Animal-based omega-3 fat like krill oil is a strong
factor in helping people live longer, and many experts
believe that it is likely the predominant reason why the
Japanese are the longest lived race on the planet.
Avoid as Many Chemicals, Toxins, and Pollutants
as Possible This includes tossing out your
toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene
products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and
insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with
non-toxic alternatives.