Health Care Crisis 

   How would you like to have some input in the evolution of our health care system? The President has asked for citizen participation on solutions to our health care crisis. There will be a forum hosted by The Health Progressive on June 6, 3-5PM CST. Go to www.thehealthprogressive.com/register to register. Then you can share your comments. How about a more integrative wellness approach being included?
  

   The Health Progressive website at www.thehealthprogressive.com makes the following points on some things that should be included in any new health care system.

Health Insurance reform with greatly simplified and uniform codes.
Managed Care reform.
Health regulatory reform.
Full integration of wellness and prevention in mainstream healthcare.
CAM products and services being available for all Americans in their health plan.
All Americans having access to Catastrophic Health Insurance with reasonable deductibles in their health plan so that no American suffers bankruptcy again due to an unforeseen medical crisis.
The elimination of preexisting health conditions and rewarding patients for healthy lifestyle choices.
Health professionals and citizens being actively involved in health reform and selecting new areas for health research for both conventional healthcare and CAM.
Environmental health playing a key role in keeping our people healthy. The role of public health must greatly expand to evaluate and rate products and services that are either health promoting or health deterring, with rapid phasing out of any that are health deterring.
A healthcare system that is simple for patients to understand. From time with their doctor or health provider, to time reading patient education, to billing and other paperwork. All health choices and decisions will be clearly communicated to patients, with safety issues carefully discussed with all treatment options, conventional and CAM.
A health plan where Medicare and Social Security are separate and distinct entities; the Social Security trustees have given a Medicare warning for 2 consecutive years that Medicare’s projected insolvency by 2016 will place our Social Security reserves at risk; we say “NO MORE!”… preserve our Social Security!

   What are your thoughts on healthcare reform?

Expanding the Biomedical Paradigm

The "Biomedical Paradigm" shared by most doctors today focuses on the use of drugs and procedures that interupt biological processes.  Little importance is placed on lifestyle practices and nutrition which support normal biological processes.  The Biomedical Paradigm holds that the challenges of medicine are adequately and COMPLETELY addressed by the objective methods of science.

   But there are flaws in the biomedical paradigm.  While drugs may seem like the "magic bullet" plenty of evidence suggests that persuading people to live healthier lives can lower the risk of heart disease and other diseases even more than drugs like statin drugs.  The biomedical paradigm does not place much importance on lifestyle factors and unhealthy behaviors such as not exercising, poor diet, smoking, and obesity.  Unfortunately, the training and culture of medicine create a belief in many doctors that this is too mundane, not worthy of their skills or time.  A study done by researchers from the Rand Corporation in December 2003 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that doctors provide appropriate counseling to their patients only 18% of the time.

     The biomedical model works extremely well for some things from emergency surgery to the treatment of life-threatening infections.  The problem is the belief that the biomedical approach is the ONLY valid approach to all our health problems.  An article published in JAMA in 2004 showed that "half of all deaths that occurred in the United States in 2000 could be attributed to...largely preventable behaviors and exposures."  There is also evidence that behavior and environment are responsible for over 70% of avoidable deaths.

Reference: "Overdosed America, the Broken Promise of American Medicine", John Abramson, M.D.

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