Opponents of single-payer health care and early access to Medicare have said they fear the costs will increase the federal deficit. Those fears are based on Medicare’s track record. Costs for the program in 1990 were 10 times higher than projected in 1964.
Opponents and supporters alike seem unaware of how much modern treatments have added to that projection. Opponents are fighting to protect those treatments. Supporters champion evidence-based medicine and want to make it the standard.
Medicine since the 1970s has become more dependent upon expensive tests, machines, prescription drugs, and years of extensive research to prove their effectiveness. Research and treatment methods have not always been so complicated or so profitable with such questionable results.
French Explorer Jacques Cartier made tea from the needles of an Eastern White Cedar to save his men from scurvy in the 1500s. He learned this remedy from natives along the St. Lawrence River and immediately used it to save lives. More than 200 years later, James Lind of the British Royal Navy proved the active ingredient was vitamin C, which could also be found in citrus fruit.
In those days results were the only proof anyone needed to accept a particular treatment. Costs for research studies today range from $100 million to $800 million, according to Drug Discovery and Development. A return to simple methods is long overdue.
The treatments used by Cartier and Lind would be considered alternative medicine in our country today. Many of what we consider alternative treatments have been proven through studies conducted around the world and are listed in PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.
One sign that this research is accurate may be found in the life expectancy list reported by the CIA World Factbook 2009. Two countries that treat natural methods as mainstream therapies rank higher than the United States. Japan, which ranks third, has used its own variation of Traditional Chinese Medicine for many centuries. Australia, number seven, allows open practice in several natural disciplines. The United States, however, ranks 50th, yet many professionals here still claim that natural treatments don’t work.
One reason for their denial is that U.S. researchers have been unable to duplicate many positive studies conducted in other countries. Experts in alternative medicine say that poor study design is the reason. Some researchers ask the wrong questions because they don’t understand how the disciplines work. Some start with the wrong quality or form of the materials they test.
In spite of the discrepancies, an additional observation suggests that these disciplines work better than western medicine when used properly. The United States spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as Australia and more than two-and-one-half times as much as Japan.
It’s past time for the U.S. to get over it’s superiority complex and embrace treatments that work. The “Citizens in Charge” plan I mentioned in an earlier post is a good road map to guide these changes.
The plan would cover catastrophic care for all and give everyone a debit card with a pre-determined amount that could only be spent on health-related costs. These cards could be used for anything related to health, including alternative medicine services and nutritious food. The savings from this plan would allow us to provide health care for every citizen in this country.
Chronic pain sufferers who also have an anxiety disorder may have lower pain tolerance or a lower pain threshold, this indicated findrxonline in article. People with an anxiety disorder may be more sensitive to medication side effects or more fearful of harmful side effects of medication than chronic pain suffers who aren’t anxious, and they may also be more fearful of pain than someone who experiences pain without anxiety.
Any chronic disease can be dangerous if not treated on time this indicates findrxonline in their articles, in many cases the drugs are of great help to counteract the chronic pain, but there are other supplements that science should be regarded as vegetables and vitamin supplements, many consider the medicines are of great help to counteract the pain, especially opioids narcotics such as Vicodin, Lortab, hydrocodone, oxycontin, oxycodone, tramadol, and many others that exist in today’s market, but I think we should also consider as an additional alternative to supplement the vitamins such as calcium, B complex, vitamin C, do you think it is a contribution to people with chronic disease?
My point is that we should be able to use whatever works. Different things work for different people. Restricting payments to treatments that have been “proven” by research limits the choices of people who can be helped by natural means.
Many people have found that natural treatments work alone. Some need to supplement with medication. Others may need to add multiple medications or surgery.
People in the last group usually could have been saved from their suffering if natural treatments had been used in the early stages. Some diseases can even be avoided by preventive care.