As a Christmas present to Americans who play about health care, Wall Street Journal recently published an article knocking integrative physicians, Deepak Chopra, MD, and Andrew Weil, MD.
Why? Why the Wall Street Journal bother to devote space to this jibe? (For an answer to this attack doctors, see Chopra HuffPost blog here: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/leave-the-sinking-ship-an_b_154538.html]
For the simple reason that if two famous doctors (and legions of integrative physicians and practitioners who follow them) have their way, health care reform under the Obama administration coming in will improve quality and reduce costs by accessing a variety of integrative health care modalities.
Why is that a problem? Because when integrative method adopted for health maintenance, disease prevention, and / or for the treatment of chronic diseases and anti-aging, will signal one thing:
Ending a long gravy train ride for pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and the more conventional practice based on the profit motive of the matter.
"Between 1998 and 2006, pharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers of health care products spent more than a billion dollars to lobby, more than anyone else ... insurance companies, including health insurance, the second rank." This insight into behind the scenes force in the health care debate came from Obama's choice to lead health care reform, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, wrote in his latest book, "Critical: What We Can Do About Health Crisis.
Keep in mind that the assessment Daschle when you hear media deriding integrative health. Those same people pay big money to lobby Congress also large media buyers (of the ads for pills that fix every problem you.) It shrinks the possibility that media reporting of health (in the Wall Street Journal or elsewhere) would be good and objective researched, open-minded, or for general interest.
Meanwhile, the integrative health community is organizing to strategize how best to incorporate their offerings to improve American health care delivery and outcomes. Only in the last week, I attended a think tank and then interviewed the key participants in the integrative health reform coming.
James S. Gordon, MD, Director of Center for Mind-Body Medicine hosted twenty-five participants (starting from the top health policy adviser to the Congress, in order to rank high military health policy personnel, to integrative practitioners, to parents of children with special needs) to dialogue and build consensus .
The group unanimously supported a single-payer insurance model for prevention, self-care, and health orientation and integral closed.
Gordon, who served as Chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Health Policy, spent two years touring the country to capture the needs and offerings in this field. Having worked extensively with a large enough population in desperate need, including victims of trauma from Kosovo, Gordon strongly supports self-care but have found that adopted incentives to encourage compliance ineffective.
"Nothing that you can use to force or bribe people to join the program will make a difference. On the other hand, when you are helping people to see the connection between what they do and how they feel, most will do what is necessary. self-care begins with caring - and that's where every health system worth its name must begin ".
The Samueli Institute, which explores the science of healing through research and other initiatives, hosted a meeting of 25 leading physicians, researchers, and scientists. (Supplement 150 followed by the phone.) Group was assessed and offered input to a proposal to create a medical office in the executive branch to act as a driver for the inclusion of prevention and integrative health care.
Participants agreed that the self-care (including nutrition, exercise, stress management, and a variety of emotional and social support) should be offered in health care, education, work, medical education, and other places.
Wayne Jonas, MD, Samueli CEO told the group that the emphasis on training and education, innovation, and knowledge transfer, integrative health care line up well with other key initiatives of the next administration.
Howard Federoff, MD, PhD, Executive Vice President of Georgetown University Medical Center, calls attention to the critical need for a preventive approach to health care and disease. "There is an artificial distinction between health and disease, but in reality they exist on a continuum. Sooner we can intervene in every major class of human disease, the better we will be."
"They are health care plans need to better understand the human organism in health and disease," counseled Gregory Fricchione, MD, Director of the Benson Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
"Do not let the matter become an afterthought. As a society, how can we continue to allow people to fall through the cracks and go without security and solace?'s Causing downstream to health problems of all kinds. We can not afford it."
Take action to incorporate integrative health care in health reform: http://www.citizens.org For regular reports on integrative healthcare reform, visit: http://www.health-journalist.com
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