Health Care Reform – Re-allocation of wealth or declaration of individual choice?

As our government promises health care reform; as our elected officials continue to flex their political muscle, we have to ask if they have ever considered what American citizens really want. Will the final product be a re-allocation of payments to the pharmaceutical companies, medical institutions, and insurance industry based on who has the most compelling lobbyists? Or, will the voices of the American people and their doctors be heard to establish a health-care system based in freedom of choice; choice of healthier, less expensive options? Will the new health care incorporate the best of traditional medicine (diagnostics and trauma care) and alternative medicine to affect the root cause with the goal of reversing and eliminating the disease? Will we be able to throw out the destructive cycle of managed sick-care and the use of pharmaceutical drugs with wide-ranging side-effects to embrace a course of wellness and longevity for every American.

Estimates on the costs of health care legislation vary depending on the estimating source and which version of the bill is considered. Two senate sources say that the Finance Committee version of the bill will cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years. The Senate, Health, Education, labor and Pensions Committee version would cost $1 trillion over 10 years, covering about one-third of nearly 50 million uninsured. A Finance Committee Democrat aide, speaking anonymously, said the goal of the Obama administration is a cost of less than $1 trillion over ten years.

Follow this link to hear what Congressman Ron Paul, who practiced medicine for 30 years, says about the past and future of medicine, the effects of managed care, government intervention, and well-funded special interests on the quality of, costs of, and access to health care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foXQbmZxWYY 

One problem is lack of competition. All inclusive, comprehensive coverage provided by insurance policies encourages people to seek medical intervention for every little problem. It also encourages the over-pricing of all services and products covered in those policies. There is no incentive to be conservative in treatment and to use natural, nutrition alternatives to pharmaceutical treatment.

American medical care is the most expensive in the world, with the U.S. spending over twice as much per person as most other industrialized countries. At the same time, the U.S. has fallen to last place among those countries in preventing avoidable deaths through timely and effective medical care. The New England Journal of Medicine published a report in 2008 saying that 90 percent of Americans believe our medical system should be “completely rebuilt” of that “fundamental changes” are required.

As long as the health care focus is on pharmaceutical and surgical responses, we won’t see these needed fundamental changes. Medically unnecessary surgeries are one reason for the rapidly increasing cost of health care. The WIP.net website lists cesarean sections and hysterectomies as the most over-used surgeries performed. The National Center for Health Statistics says that in 2006, 4.3 million births were surgical, with costs ranging from $2,000 to $200,000 each. A report in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology says that a planned cesarean birth cost averages 76 percent more than a vaginal birth. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than one-third of American women have had a hysterectomy by the age of 60. More than half have had their female organs removed by age 60. Nora Coffey states in her WIP article that the HERS Foundation in Philadelphia found, after 850,000 counseling sessions, that 98 percent of hysterectomies could be avoided with conservative treatment or not treatment at all.

We cannot wait for a roomful of politicians, influenced by lobbyists representing the pharmaceutical, medical, and insurance companies, to shift the consciousness to true health and health care. This change will have to come from you and every individual. We need to change how we view our own health and our responsibility for our health. We have to make the choice to educate ourselves about healthy lifestyles and primary prevention through the consumption of organic foods and nutritional supplements. We have to choose, with our dollars, non-toxic, unconventional, or alternative treatments that will prevent and heal illness. We have to make our choices clear to our government. The Obama administration, through the internet, through email campaigns, through direct solicitation of comments from Americans citizens, has directly tapped into what we want, in unprecedented numbers. Educate yourself, make choices about your health, and let your state representatives and the Obama administration know what you want and how you want your health care dollars spent.