Déjà vu All Over Again
Naturopathic doctors, herbal healers, mind-body specialists, and acupuncturists are all trying to get included in the health reform bill. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) is trying to help them. “It’s time to end the discrimination against alternative healthcare practices,” he says.
Why not? They could call it “Even the Kitchen Sink” Government Option.
On the other hand, many states already mandate coverage for many things (just short of the kitchen sink) and they have been proven to drive up costs.
Link
On cost control, this is the beginning of the end.
Many patients favor alternative medicine. However, most alternative medical treatments do not rely on objective standards to determine when a treatment is needed. Thus, the use of alternative medicine is likely to be abused if health insurance is required to cover it. I can imagine people making a weekly trip the massage therapist for a backrub. A trip to the herbalist or dietician may become a monthly routine. It’s easy to imagine chiropractors scheduling standing appointments for spinal adjustments, since many patients would enjoy the treatments — but face little of the costs. As with therapists, purveyors of alternative medicine likely believe even healthy people would benefit from their services — all on the insurer’s (or taxpayers’) dime. This is precisely why people need to control their own health care dollars. That way, patients themselves can decide which treatments hold value rather than foisting the cost of the rest of us.
[…] Déjà vu All Over Again […]
Its about time that we are not forced to rely on poisons and illnerss causing drugs for healthcare. Alternative medicine has a LONG historical track record and results proove that alternative medicine is both effective and less toxic for humans.
The fight against alternative medicine isn’t about whether it works or not but is purely based on profits.
If people are not reliant on poisons to “cure” an illness, find a route that has proven effective, then it becomes harder for insurance and Pharma to continue to poison America. Why is Ameruca the highest in chronic illness? Partly because of the American lifestyle of fast food, fast bucks and partying, but mainly because the drugs we are fed, CAUSE illness. As drug have increased in strength, they have also increased in the number of side-effects and severoity of side-effects. MOST drugs on the market have a chance of causing serious and long-lasting health complications that require further treatment. It is a loop that ensures that we remain reliant on insurance and Pharma.
The only cause for concern about includiong alternative medicine under insurance is that alternative medicine is most always cheaper than western conventional treatments. If they are placed under insurance, these medicines will also become priced beyond reach for most people. Insurance always causes the cost to rise, and there is no reason to believe that this would be any different.