Cost of health care

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Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer Shannon Brownlee See book keywords and concepts

By admitting millions of patients who may not need to be in the hospital, or by putting them in more expensive beds than necessary, physicians are needlessly driving up the cost of health care (and more important, as we saw in chapter 2, needlessly exposing their patients to the dangers of being in the hospital, where errors, complications, and infection kill thousands of people each year).

The Liver and Gallbladder Miracle Cleanse: An All-Natural, At-Home Flush to Purify and Rejuvenate Your Body Andreas Moritz See book keywords and concepts

In 2001, the cost of health care in the United States exceeded the $1 trillion mark, and in 2004, total health care spending amounted to $1.9 trillion. That represented 16 percent of the nation's GDP, and there is no end to this trend in sight. Healthcare spending is projected to double to $4 trillion over the next decade. Good health care cannot be measured by how much money is being spent on treating symptoms of disease. Treating the symptoms of an illness inevitably requires further treatments, because the origins of disease are ignored and become worse if left unattended.

Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes Michael J. Panzner See book keywords and concepts

Before Medicare was established in 1965, for instance, many older Americans found it difficult to cover the cost of health care, and widespread sentiment held that society owed them more for their troubles. In recent years, however, actuaries have increasingly warned about the rapidly rising cost of entitlement programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the largesse of which have grown over time. Undoubtedly, complacency has played a part. The United States has successfully weathered other so-called fiscal storms in the past.

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Labor unions are discovering that they cannot negotiate contracts that keep wages apace with inflation because the cost of health care is severely eroding corporate profit margins. Companies are closing down factories and jobs at home and relocating them overseas, where wages and health costs are much lower. All the while, increasing numbers of American workers are sliding into the ranks of the uninsured. What can we do? I have a fairly radical answer for that question: We should aim at eliminating chronic illness. That is not an unattainable goal.

The main reason is the cost of health care for GM's current and retired workers, which is now so high that it adds $1,500 to the price of every vehicle the company manufactures. And General Motors is hardly alone. Starbucks, one of the most successful companies of the past two decades, recently announced that it is spending more on health care for employees than it spends on coffee beans.

Natural Medicine, Optimal Wellness: The Patient's Guide to Health and Healing Jonathan V. Wright, M.D. and Alan R. Gaby, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

There is good reason to believe that nutritional therapy (combined with chelation therapy in selected cases) could save millions of lives and greatly reduce the cost of health care. Because of the high stakes involved with heart disease, these alternative approaches deserve serious research funding. Summary of Recommendations for Treating Angina Pectoris • Diet: Avoid refined sugar, caffeine alcohol. Consume whole foods, emphasizing fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes. Consume fish and other low-fat animal foods in moderation. • Magnesium injections in selected cases.

Naturopathic Nutrition: A Guide to Nutrient-rich Food & Nutritional Supplements for Optimum Health Abram Hoffer, PhD, MD, FRCP(C) and Dr. Jonathan Prousjy, DPHE, DSC, ND, FRSH See book keywords and concepts

Our society should be much healthier and our citizens should be living much longer - and the public cost of health care costs should be going down substantially. Why, then, has just the reverse occurred? On the average people live longer - that is, many more live into old age - but the expectation of additional years by the time one reaches 50 has not changed in the past 100 years. What has gone wrong? Why did we not foresee these changes in i960 when our health plans were being formulated?

Prescription for Dietary Wellness: Using Foods to Heal Phyllis A. Balch, CNC See book keywords and concepts

Type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease, once almost exclusively diseases of later adulthood, are appearing in people at younger and younger ages. The cost of health care in the United States is the highest in the world, and it is increasing at a galloping 17 percent a year. The unchecked use of antibiotics in humans and animals has resulted in antimicrobial resistance that can make certain strains of tuberculosis, malaria, and pneumonia, to name a few, deadly diseases again. Doctors documented the first large-scale U.S.

Get Healthy Now with Gary Null: A Complete Guide to Prevention, Treatment and Healthy living Gary Null See book keywords and concepts

Patricia Arthur, for instance, believes that the extraordinary cost of health care is due largely to a lack of fair competition in the health care industry. She says, "The nation is headed toward a $1.4 trillion annual health care budget. Each person in the country will be expending more than $3,900 per year on health care costs. Chiropractic is a low-cost substitute for certain segments of medical care. That is the result of a monopoly in the health care field centered around the AMA." Another plaintiff, Dr. Chester A.

Foods That Fight Disease: A Simple Guide to Using and Understanding Phytonutrients to Protect and Enhance Your Health Laurie Deutsch Mozian, M.S., R.D. See book keywords and concepts

The high cost of health care is putting a strain on personal budgets and government funds. This new information about phytochemicals can further guide us in our food choices to take control of our health. Making Phytochemical Information User Friendly We will need concise and accessible information to make phytochemicals user friendly and part of our national consciousness. In time, phytochemical information needs to be moved into its rightful place in the existing database that is managed by the United States Department of Agriculture called the Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.

Health Care Meltdown: Confronting The Myths and Fixing Our Failing System Bob LeBow, M.D., M.P.H. See book keywords and concepts

But in comparison to the attention given to costs for government and industry, almost no attention has been devoted to the cost of health care borne by the patient or consumer. Instead, the patient has been increasingly squeezed with a spiral of higher deductibles and co-payments. And people who have been sick are penalized even more, especially if they have an awful "preexisting condition," with astronomical prices for health insurance, if it's even available. The "incremental" approaches have done nothing to improve this situation.

Yet, as the cost of health care increases exponentially and health insurance becomes increasingly unaffordable, insurance companies may want to get out of "risk" situations in health care. They could shift their role and become contract administrators for a national health plan. They would get their cut of the payments. And they could avoid potential losses, the kinds of losses suffered by about half of the for-profit HMOs in the waning days of the managed-care bubble. They could voluntarily choose to get out of the "risk" business.

Indeed, Donald Light argues that universal access to health care would greatly lower the overall cost of health care in the U.S. It would grossly simplify our current complex systems for billing, marketing, and administration—and save money. In an article entitled, "Health Care for All. A Conservative Case," Light points out that our overhead (about 25 percent) is about three times that spent in countries "with private care but universal access, such as Germany, Japan, and The Netherlands."4 The American public has pretty much bought into the myths about foreign health care.

The principal converging factors: (a) a rapidly increasing number of uninsured and underinsured, (b) a marked rise in health insurance premiums and the cost of health care, (c) a worsening economy (which may be temporary, but will likely affect low-income people more), (d) a growing number of unemployed people, and (e) a demand for relief from employers. With all of the above conditions, state governments, which are already facing soaring expenditures for the Medicaid safety net, are likely to reach a state of fiscal panic.

It's likely that the European and Japanese health systems may foster too much dependency on the part of patients, but in America, given the exorbitant cost of health care today, we may have gone too far in stressing independence as the standard. We are systematically encouraging or forcing people to delay or avoid care.

Foods That Fight Disease: A Simple Guide to Using and Understanding Phytonutrients to Protect and Enhance Your Health Laurie Deutsch Mozian, M.S., R.D. See book keywords and concepts

We have a lot more to learn, but it's certainly beginning to appear that increased plant food consumption might offer one safe, cost-effective method of lowering the high cost of health care. 3 Phytochemicals from A to Z As you already know from reading the previous chapters, |4| science has identified hundreds of phytochemicals. J I Some of these phytochemicals distinguish themselves because they exert more powerful disease-fighting mechanisms than others do. This chapter contains a roll call of the most powerful biologically active phytochemicals that appear in foods.

Health Care Meltdown: Confronting The Myths and Fixing Our Failing System Bob LeBow, M.D., M.P.H. See book keywords and concepts

Millions more, including middle-class Americans, are at risk of joining them as beggars in the near future as the cost of health care soars. Our Poor Performance and Perverse Incentives Despite our standing as the richest country in the world—and despite our spending nearly twice as much per person on health care than any other country—the overall results have been disappointing, dehumanizing, and at times even abysmal. Our health status indicators rank us near the bottom among the developed countries in such measures as life expectancy and infant mortality.

Prescription for Herbal Healing: An Easy-to-Use A-Z Reference to Hundreds of Common Disorders and Their Herbal Remedies Phyllis A. Balch, CNC See book keywords and concepts

This entire book has been written with an acute and personal awareness of the frequently overwhelming cost of health care. The most economical approach to regaining and maintaining health is a combination of conventional medicine with supplemental approaches. Except for minor conditions, the herbs and formulas in this book are not chosen to replace conventional medicine. Instead, they are intended to work with conventional medicine, to help it work more quickly, effectively, painlessly, and economically.

New Choices in Natural Healing: Over 1,800 of the Best Self-Help Remedies from the World of Alternative Medicine Bill Gottlieb See book keywords and concepts

They have to, because with the cost of health care, they can't afford not to." At the same time, more and more Americans have been affected by newly discovered chronic degenerative diseases such as AIDS and chronic fatigue syndrome, conditions that Western medicine can't cure. "Conventional medicine doesn't do all that well with chronic illnesses, which are definitely on the increase," notes Dr. Edelberg.

The Woman's Encyclopedia of Natural Healing Dr. Gary Null See book keywords and concepts

ULTRASOUND The author of a review article on ultrasound argues that using it in the screening of low-risk women provides no clinical benefits for either mother or child and adds millions to the cost of health care. Results of the Routine Antenatal Diagnostic Imaging with Ultrasound (RADIUS) trial, which compared over 15,000 low-risk pregnant women who were routinely screened with ultrasound to a group who received ultrasound examinations only when these were specifically indicated, appear to support the author's conclusions in that death or morbidity occurred in 4.

Vibrational Medicine: The #1 Handbook of Subtle-Energy Therapies Richard Gerber, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Unfortunately, the increasing cost of health care in this country has made it necessary for many to obtain health insurance to provide for the medical needs of their families. Because of the third-party payer's attitudes toward reimbursement for services, the tendency is still to encourage orthodox medical approaches. An optimistic note can be derived from the observation that a number of third-party payers, including Blue Cross, are opting toward the promotion of wellness programs of prevention.

The Green Pharmacy Anti-Aging Prescriptions: Herbs, Foods, and Natural Formulas to Keep You Young James A. Duke, Ph.D. See book keywords and concepts

While public officials and consumer advocates rally around the high cost of health care, most physicians are reluctant to make a very cheap, very effective herb their treatment of choice for BPH. So the nation continues to spend billions of dollars a year on one of its most common health problems. It's such a shame. From what I've read in the medical literature, you need only 40 to 60 milligrams of sitosterols per day to experience saw palmetto's prostate benefits. I'd wager that you could get that much just by eating my Even Better Prosnut Butter (see recipe on page 206).

Textbook of Natural Medicine 2nd Edition Volume 1 Michael T. Murray, ND See book keywords and concepts

Because periodontal disease is so common, the costs of periodontal surgery and other treatments contribute a significant amount to the overall cost of health care in the United States. Healing and repair of periodontal tissues require efficient energy production, which depends on an adequate supply of CoQ10. However, gingival biopsies revealed subnormal tissue levels of CoQ10 in 60-96% of patients with periodontal disease and low levels of CoQ10 in leukocytes in 86% of cases.16"19 These findings indicate that periodontal disease is frequently associated with CoQ10 deficiency.

However, the unsolved problems of mechanistic medicine - particularly those of chronic degenerative disease, authoritarianism which alienates patients from responsibility for their own health, and the increasing cost of health care - suggest that there are limits to the mechanistic perspective and explain why vitalism has not disappeared and is, in fact, in resurgence. Vitalism The philosophy of vitalism is based on the concept that life is too well organized to be explained simply as a complex assemblage of chemical and physical reactions (i.e.

Herbal Defense Robyn Landis See book keywords and concepts

When increasingly powerful interventions are used to treat these "satellite" problems, a never-ending vicious cycle ensues that is bad for the patient and the cost of health care. By making the host weak and favoring survival of the fittest microorganisms, drugs can also influence the evolution of disease, affecting not just your health but that of society. The "hot issue" of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is just one example. The problem is predictable by common sense, yet trillions of dollars in industries are built on the dismissal of this logic.

The Woman's Encyclopedia of Natural Healing Dr. Gary Null See book keywords and concepts

The author of a review article on ultrasound argues that using it in the screening of low-risk women provides no clinical benefits for either mother or child and adds millions to the cost of health care. Results of the Routine Antenatal Diagnostic Imaging with Ultrasound (RADIUS) trial, which compared over 15,000 low-risk pregnant women who were routinely screened with ultrasound to a group who received ultrasound examinations only when these were specifically indicated, appear to support the author's conclusions in that death or morbidity occurred in 4.

Innocent Casualties : The FDA's War Against Humanity Elaine Feuer See book keywords and concepts

Nutritional deficiencies, which trigger most chronic diseases, have escalated the cost of health care in America to unaffordable heights—it is criminal not to have physician education in nutritional biochemistry. The United States medical monopoly could not exist without the enforcement powers of the Food and Drug Administration. Americans must take back control of their health care before it is too late.

Making Them Pay: How to Get the Most from Health Insurance and Managed Care Rhonda D. Orin See book keywords and concepts

CAFETERIA PLANS When it comes to the cost of health care, there's one more thing to keep in mind. Many companies offer their employees the opportunity to participate in "cafeteria plans," variously known as medical savings accounts and flexi-spending accounts. These can be terrific money savers, if you're smart about it. In a cafeteria plan, you direct your company before January 1 of each calendar year to withdraw a certain amount of money, pretax, from your salary. Then you use these pretax dollars to pay for health care that is not covered by insurance.

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