An Ounce of Prevention

I completely agree with the author that the current health care debate is missing the most important ingredient: prevention.

For starters, how about reimbursement for gym memberships, vitamins and other nutritional supplements, on-site preventive medical care, on-site therapist/counselor, healthy and organic food in cafeterias, and a four-day 10-hours-a-day work week.

The entire article is an excellent read, here's a short excerpt from the Huffington Post...

Meaningful health reform needs to provide incentives for physicians and other health professionals to teach their patients healthy ways of living rather than reimbursing primarily drugs and surgical interventions. If lifestyle interventions proven to reverse as well as prevent many chronic diseases are reimbursed along with other strategies for improving cost-effectiveness across the U.S. health care system, then it may be possible to provide universal coverage at significantly lower cost without making painful choices, and the only side-effects are good ones.

The U.S. "health-care system" is primarily what Senator Harkin [D-Iowa] calls "a sick-care system." Last year, 16.5% of the gross national product in the U.S. was spent on medical care, and 95 cents of every dollar was spent to treat disease after it had already occurred.

Heart disease, diabetes, prostate/breast cancer, and obesity account for up to 75% of these health care costs, and yet these are largely preventable and even reversible by changing diet and lifestyle.

Many people tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, laser, or high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle -- what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and social support -- can be as powerful as drugs and surgery, but they often are. Often, even better.

In cardiology, for example, large-scale studies have shown that changing lifestyle could prevent at least 90-95% of all heart disease. Thus, the disease that accounts for more premature deaths and costs Americans more than any other illness is almost completely preventable, and even reversible, simply by changing lifestyle.