CAM NEWS Vol. I Issue 11

Dear Reader,

greetings from the November issue of CAM News. As the latest set of elections changed the political landscape in Washington it remains to be seen if something is actually happening. In this month's newsletter I would like to touch on the ongoing healthcare crisis in this country. Clearly, the health care policies adopted by our leaders and faithfully carried out by the AMA (American Medical Association) are not working. It is a model based on disease management versus a model of health management. The majority of this country's population, if this problem remains to be ignored, will be plagued by insurmountable chronic diseases.

The now retiring baby boomers will add an even greater amount of burden on the already bursting health care system. Increasing costs with decreasing services will be the norm. We need to get answers from our elected officials about what they are planning to do about this problem. Accessible, affordable healthcare should not be a pipe dream but a reality for every single person residing within this country's borders. As of this writing there are about 40 million people (little over 4 times the entire population of Michigan) without health insurance. A stroke of bad luck for any one of these persons will send them down the bankruptcy aisle, in turn, making health care premiums even more expensive for the few with health insurance. Not a viable solution. I am proposing our elected officials take a long, hard look at their own healthcare plan and figure out a way to bring a comparable plan to the American people. If they fail, we the people need to strip Senators and Representatives of the perks associated with their office.

Fortunately, everything is not doom and gloom. There are ways to provide affordable healthcare to all people. Here in Michigan a great discussion is going on, on how to make the state more competitive in order to attract new business to replace jobs lost in the ailing auto-industry. Here is the proposal I am bringing forth: A state sponsored healthcare plan based on models already in place in some large corporations. Lets face it, if Michigan's, or for that matter, this country's corporations are held accountable for providing health insurance to their employees, taking away more and more from the so called bottom line, new corporations will think twice before setting up shop in the good old US of A, they will go to China, South America, India etc. There are just not enough tax breaks a business can get to offset this huge expense for even an average sized corporation. On the other hand, corporations might choose not to provide health insurance, which will leave individuals on their own. I don't have to tell you how much of your hard earned cash is shelled out to provide for your families healthcare needs. This number could be considerably lowered.

Please turn your attention now to the four part series I posted on the Alternative Medicine Blog entitled Approaches to 21st Century Employee Healthcare for Corporations. I know it is a different ball game to apply this strategy to a populous of 9,938,444 but it is a start. At least let us speculate on what might be possible. Changes clearly can happen faster at the state level, if you want to wait for Washington politicians to address this issue, proverbial hell might freeze over.

Affordable health insurance must not mean diminished care. On the contrary, the studies I have mentioned in this paper show a tremendous amount of people's participation with increases in job satisfaction and overall personal well being.

This society needs to stop reacting to health care ailments and it needs to start working on a wellness system addressing the management of health. According to Jack Bastable at CBIZ Inc., who believes that most companies should focus on wellness for all workers rather than disease management for a relative few: "The greatest savings, long term, come from the opportunity to keep people who are healthy from getting sick," he explains. Why would that not be possible at the state level?

I know there are plenty of skeptics to Alternative Medicine out there, but this is the main mantra of "Alternative Medicine", maintain equilibrium, or homeostasis within the amazing biological system we call the human body. Detect imbalances in the whole person as early as possible, before they become chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer America's citizens are ridden with.

A final question: Where, if it is supposed to be as simple as keeping people who are healthy from getting sick, is this society going wrong in meeting a challenge, which can be summed up in one sentence?

Beste Gesundheit,

Werner

Ps: Please feel free to duplicate and forward this e-mail via the e-mail to a friend link below to anyone you think might be interested in receiving relevant, sound, scientific information about Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

The Alternative Medicine Blog is made possible by the Adolf & Maria Absenger Cancer Foundation.

The future does not belong to those who are content with today,
apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike,
timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas.
Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion,
reason and courage in a personal commitment to the
great enterprises and ideals of American society.

Robert F. Kennedy

Comments

[Bonnie]

Interesting blog. I'd like to point out that Oregon has already played with the state run healthcare system. It's not a perfect system and doens't cover everyone, but it's a beginning and it's been fairly successful (of course as they have been having budget shortfalls this has been cut, which reduces those eligible for healthcare).

In any health plan, I'd love to see routine exams included. How I hate it that the cheap plans that I get (and even when I wasn't self employed and I had "good" insurance) they cover the lab test for an annual pap but not the exam--do they really think I'm going to collect it myself?