Health Care Costs

Interesting article in the current issue of the Harvard Business Review about the escalating costs of health care. The Big Idea: How to Solve The Cost Crisis in Health Care has a very simple core concept. We can't reduce the cost of health care because we're measuring the wrong things in the wrong way. It would at least be a place to start.

Obesity Epidemic

There's been a lot of noise in the media for quite some time about the obesity epidemic in America. All sorts of fingers are pointed at possible culprits like the over-sized portions served in restaurants, our lack of exercise, etc. But there's one issue that's been completely ignored and that's what's been done to us.

To preserve freshness in the food chain bisphenol-A, or BPA for short, was added to many commonly used products like food and beverage containers, baby bottles, dental sealants, even the lining of food cans. Research done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently showed BPA present in 95% of the people studied. Yet the media has ignored how BPA can cause obesity as demonstrated in experiments done at Duke University with the Agouti Mice.

How much of America's obesity epidemic is caused by industry's use of BPA? More important, why isn't the media talking about it? Since the food industry is one of the biggest advertisers today could the media be concerned about alienating their client?

Health Care Costs and U.S. Debt

The current debt debate in Washington is bringing the issue of health care costs to the front burner again. Today we're spending more than $2.7 trillion or $8,650 per capita on health care, about $1 out of every $6 in our economy. In just 9 more years, by 2020, the figure is going to rise to $1 out of every $5 ($13,710 per capita) or 20% of our nation's entire Gross Domestic Product at $4.7 trillion.

Obviously our country simply cannot afford such a bill. It's not only medical innovations and an aging population that are driving medical costs up, but virtually every part of health care continues to escalate in cost beyond normal inflation. As a doctor at the Mayo Clinic said in a PBS special on health care a few years ago "As a society we simply can't afford to give everyone every medical treatment available." Some call that rationing health care. Every other industrialized country in the world calls that common sense, especially when the vast majority of costs occur in the last few years of life when the quality of life is the lowest.

Join in the discussion, it's your country. Call your elected representatives and let them know what you think, it's the only way they'll it. Later you can vote to hold them accountable!

U. S. Life Expectancy

The U.S. life expectancy rate continues to improve (for the most part) but we continue to fall behind the rest of the world. WGN-TV got the story right today, noting that for women the U.S. longevity rate ranks #33 in the world while the rate for men ranks #37. CBS and most of the mainstream media failed to report the whole story. To support mainstream medicine and Big Pharma they only said our life expectancy rate continues to improve.

Thanks to WGN-TV for remembering what journalism is all about. Some folks, probably mainly Chicagoans, know that WGN comes from the Chicago Tribune which was called the World's Greatest Newspaper (WGN).

First EFT Interview

Tina Craig's first interview is on the UnBreak Your Health podcast! Tina is the daughter of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) creator Gary Craig and she's taking over the family business, sort of. When Gary retired last year he declined to endorse any particular school of EFT but he did say on his website that the closest thing to learning EFT from the source was his daughter's program.

Tina has created a new set of EFT training classes with the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP). The entire, original, 3-level training series is now part of the first level of EFT training. Levels 2 and 3 offer new material never available before.

Check out the newest show on the UnBreak Your Health podcast program!

Cell Phone Danger

The cell phone industry has been crowing for ages that none of the major health agencies have issued any warnings about their products. That ended yesterday when the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a report (actually a review of many studies and reports) warning that cell phones are "possibly carcinogenic" and cautioned about their use. Since we've only had cell phones for about two decades the real long-term dangers are yet to be seen.

There's a reason that San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring all cell phones sold in the city to display the amount of radiation they produce. We probably need to have that made a national law, consider it a kind of truth in packaging.

Children are especially vulnerable to radiation since their bodies are smaller, their skulls are thinner and their brains are still growing. Parents should insist on a wired ear piece for their kids, require that the phone not be near their bed at night and suggest texting instead of talking on the phone (kids prefer it anyway).

Cell phones are one ingredient in what Dr. Martha Grout calls "electrosmog" that threatens our health today. Her new book An Alphabet of Good Health in a sick world covers cell phone radiation and many other useful topics.

Use your cell phone at your own risk!

Recovering The Self

My latest podcast featuring Dr. Martha Grout, co-author of An Alphabet of Good Health in a sick world is mentioned in the new edition of Recovering The Self!

http://www.recoveringself.com/podcasts/best-alternative-health-book-2011