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

Medical Reporting

Medical reporting on TV news today really is pretty sad. Last night I happened to catch the same story on all 3 networks about an autism study done in South Korea. NBC had the most disjointed report, one that included several generalizations and unsubstantiated claims. ABC had the shortest take on the story. CBS had the best report but it implied that the autism rates in South Korea translated into a dramatic rise in undiagnosed autism in America.

Not one story recognized that the dietary, cultural and other differences between our two countries could make any extrapolation of the autism rate in South Korea meaningless in America. They were all happy to report the press release almost as written to create a sense of urgency in our country. This new sense of urgency will eventually translate into more prescriptions for drugs.

Watching the same story reported three different ways was an educational experience which only confirmed once again the sad state of journalism in America today, especially when the subject is medicine.

Billion-Dollar Patient Care Initiative

Some local news with national ramifications today. The Department of Health & Human Services announced a new $1 billion health care initiative called Partnership for Patients. The goal is to reduce hospital mistakes that injure or even kill patients. If successful the program could save up to $35 billion.

Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas has been chosen as the bulls-eye of this target to improve health care. Baylor was selected as one of the dozen locations for the program because their Dallas heart and vascular hospital has the nation's lowest readmission rate so it's starting from a higher plateau than most hospitals. The goal of the program is to reduce hospital mistakes by 40% and readmissions by 20%.

We're even going to get to look at the results of the program and judge its cost effectiveness for ourselves because the data will be posted at www.healthcare.gov.