via Dr. Andrew Weil: The Wrong Diagnosis.
In HuffPo today there are at least two articles that deal with the same subject that the health care reform debate is missing the point – that talk about becoming healthy and staying healthy is somehow left off the table.
I disagree. I think the health care debate in Congress is dead on target.
Dr. Andrew Weil address what he considers to be the answer to the health care problem in the U.S. in an op-ed called, The Wrong Diagnosis.
And, what’s true in personal health care is just as true in national health care reform: Healing begins with the correct diagnosis of the problem.
Washington is working on reform initiatives that focus on one problem: the fact that the system is too expensive (and consequently too exclusive.) Reform proposals, such as the “public option” for government insurance or calls for drug makers to drop prices, are aimed mostly at boosting affordability and access. Make it cheap enough, the thinking goes, and the 46 million Americans who can’t afford coverage will finally get their fair share.
But what’s missing, tragically, is a diagnosis of the real, far more fundamental problem, which is that what’s even worse than its stratospheric cost is the fact that American health care doesn’t fulfill its prime directive — it does not help people become or stay healthy. It’s not a health care system at all; it’s a disease management system, and making the current system cheaper and more accessible will just spread the dysfunction more broadly.
Somewhere in a fictitious classroom…
“Children, class, the good doctor makes a statement that our current health care industry doesn’t help people stay healthy. Can anyone think of a reason why our health care industry doesn’t keep us healthy?”
A hand shot up from the back of the class. The teacher is a bit cautious because this child is sometimes unruly. “Yes”, she says nodding to the anxious student.
“My Dad said that Mom can’t go to the nutritionist ’cause she’s fat ’cause the insurance won’t cover it,” he says. There’s snickering around the classroom. His hand shoots up again, “What does that mean, the insurance won’t cover it?”
The teacher replies, “Your mother is in a predicament that millions of American citizens find themselves in. We are willing to use the medical industry’s methods to keep us healthy, but sadly, many of us don’t have insurance coverage that will pay for us to see the specialists we need to guide us down a healthy path. Oftentimes, treatment such as dietary planning and supplements, even gastric bypass surgery, is just out of reach for many of us on the lower end of the income ladder. We just don’t make enough money, and our employee insurance is restricted to regular medical treatments. So our access to the special treatment is severely limited. Does that answer your question?”
The student’s eyes turned downward and a tear rolled down his cheek. “Mom sure would be happy if she could go do it,” he whispers.
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A Second Look | Incremental Change We Can Believe In
via The Health Care Speech, Revealed – The Daily Beast.
In his speech on Wednesday, September 8, the President will outline what he sees as necessary for insurance reform.
Obama is going to tell us that insurance reform must include those things that will alleviate the financial pain that every American feels when they get seriously sick or injured, and alleviate the rising costs of out-of-pocket expenses every average American pays to our health care industry.
Giving Barack the benefit of the doubt, his viewpoints on insurance regulation are more than welcome. Some points he might make is that under his planthere will be no exorbitant out-of-pocket deductibles or co-pays, and that there will be no discrimination for pre-existing conditions. He will tell su that insurance reform must prevail, and he is right.
Obama will try to sell us on the idea that we cannot throw out the bathwater to save the baby - that the public option is a goal and it is not the end-all. Conservatives will nod their approval, but what do you do with liberal progressives that worked their tails off to get him elected, who demand not only a public option but a full-blown single payer system such as H.R. 676, Medicare for All?
You tell them that what we need right now is insurance reform. The White House web site, along with all the rhetoric from Obama’s spokespersons, has changed the terminology from health care reform to insurance reform. You tell them that the public option is always on the table even when you have tossed in that particular bargaining chip. You tell them that this is a step toward the public option, which can wait, in a way that doesn’t set off another shit storm from the right-wing echo machine. This is what Obama plans to do Wednesday – tell the left that they will get better insurance and at the same time soothe the right by down-playing the public option.
The White House mouth-pieces made the rounds today. David Axelrod was on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Robert Gibbs was on ABC’s “This Week”.
Let’s hope.