We were told from the start that health care reform would be tough. On one side stands the public, with its tangled needs for medical care. What would be best for them? President Obama's town meetings have outlined the basics: lower costs, universal coverage, and a public plan to compete with private insurers. Among advanced countries, only the U.S. lacks those things. On the other side stand vested interests -- doctors, insurance companies, hospitals, and pharmaceutical giants -- who have their own needs. It goes without question that money is the first, overriding almost everything else. Doctors speak out for high quality of care, but what they really mean is maintaining the current backbreaking level of surgeries and new drugs.
I'm not arguing that physicians don't want reform. The AMA has endorsed it. But I don't hear doctors promoting what the public actually needs. A story this week announced a study from Columbia University in which older patients reduced the risk of Alzheimer's by more than half if they exercised and ate a diet rich in fruits and vegetables instead of red meat. If you didn't peruse the health section of the New York Times, you probably didn't read the story. You were far more likely to read about "death panels," government committees that President Obama wants to empower to decide who lives and dies by rationing out expensive procedures and last-minute attempts at resuscitation.
The hitch is that the story is a lie, a fabrication out of whole cloth, and its circulation is by the intractable right (Sarah Palin, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, etc.), who seem addicted to the basest of political ploys. The "birthers" movement that denies Obama's American citizenship would be a ridiculous example, but it's not so ridiculous when we hear that health-care reform is a "government takeover" or that bureaucrats will soon be telling you which doctor you can see and what procedures you can have. We aren't hearing the great vested interests deny those rumors, either. So the enormous difficulty of health care reform is compounded with dishonesty. Obama has become Daniel in the liars' den.
The truth is that hardly anyone who already has health insurance is given unlimited access to any doctor and any procedure. HMOs make exclusions every day. The danger of a "government takeover" echoes the Republican campaign against Medicare in the Sixties -- none of them voted for it, either. But those who keep lies alive know what they want, which is to induce fear in the public mind. With enough discord in the public sector, people will forget their true needs, and then the parts of health care that vested interests hate, such as the public option and drastic cost-cutting, can be yanked out of the bill. (Notice how Nancy Pelosi, who staunchly stood up for the public option, is being vilified as a socialist.)
As adults, we are each responsible for sorting out the truth, but millions of informed citizens may not be enough to fight the system as it stands. The back-and-forth of politics will produce half measures and compromises to suit powerful lobbyists. That's why I keep thinking about the road less traveled: taking responsibility for your own wellness. That's the ultimate way to cut costs for individuals and families. Doctors will still waste hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary tests, perform surgeries known not to increase life expectancy (such as heart bypass and angioplasty), and grossly over-prescribe drugs with harmful side effects. Such is the American way of medicine. But there is an immense counter-trend toward alternative health. If you sincerely investigate what diet, exercise, meditation, stress reduction, and natural treatments are all about, you will beat the liars at their own game, even if Congress barely stands a chance to win a draw.
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle
Follow Deepak Chopra on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeepakChopra
My mother died aged 99, and received first rate care from the NHS throughout her old age. My father died at 88 with stomach cancer. He was cared for at home by a dedicated team of NHS doctors and nurses. I have had a number of accidents and illnesses during my life - all attended to with speed, efficiency and care by the NHS. Currently I have chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which means I get a monthly transfusion of immunoglobulin. I'm told it takes 30,000 donors to create each dose of this precious elixir - yet I get it scot free on the NHS. My husband was last year diagnosed with multiple myeloma. He was referred by our friendly local doctor to the hospital specialist. He got an appointment 2 days later, and treatment (chemotherapy and thalidomide) started the same day. Later he underwent stem cell replacement therapy, in an NHS hospital where every care, kindness and consideration was given to us both. What would all this have cost in the US? Here, it was all free.
I simply don't understand what on earth you guys have got against this system. Here in Britain we are extremely proud of it, proud especially that it's available to EVERYONE, regardless. I love America and I love and admire a great deal about the American people. But your healthcare system - well, no comment.
But an equally deep issue is that people need access now if there health declines and traditional medicine can provide any help.
and while there is a lot to be learned, i hope after the whole foods mess... people are starting
to wise up to the corp/money hungry folk behind a lot of the new age movement...they are selling the products by marketing it as a lifestyle that many equate with social responsibility and doing the right thing...but in many cases behind that smell of patchchouli is a large pile of corp. sh*t...in some ways less honest than wal-mart...
A bit of thought would easily reveal a host a medical conditions that no one can take responsibility for, Dr Chopra. Perhaps your myopic vision of "the wisdom of the East" has dis-served you and any others who take their eyes off the ball -- We need and can get health care reform now! Call the White House; call your senators; call Blue Dogs.
The best self-care cannot reverse the aging process; it can only slow it. The best self-care cannot prevent a drunk driver from hitting your car.
You can't treat a broken leg with tofu.
HEALTH care is comprehensive and includes personal responsibility BUT it also includes medical coverage for crisis situations, like resistant microorganisms, traumatic injury, and preventive care like flu shots.
It works in 30 other "first-world" countries. Why is America willing to slide to third-world status in caring for its taxpaying citizens?
Click here to support House Reps who will not vote for a bill without a Public Option!
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/activities/181
I know he has millions of fans, I'm just not one of them. Maybe it has something to do with the high price spa he runs and other multimillion dollars enterprises. I haven't seen him volunteer for Remote Medical Access or any other group that helps the un and underinsured.
Years of hard work both at a desk, at a consturction site or lugging sides of beef to a butcher shop take a toll on the body.
Anyone remember Euell Gibbons. He was one of the first whole grains TV ad personality and died of stomach cancer. Jim Fixx (might have first name wrong) the runner who died of heart disease. There are legions of people who ate and lived right only to contract expensive and often deadly diseases.
Chopra is more of the same only his sthick is spiced with curry.
how can you be so cruel as to leave the working poor out in the cold? how can you be so cruel? do you have any idea what life is like for non-rich people? for people who have hereditary medical problems? do you care at all if people are bankrupted by their hospital bills for conditions that aren't "their fault"?
I am so sick and tired of this self-righteous "I haven't gotten sick yet so everyone should be like me" ultra-conservative point of view that people like you, John Mackey and Andrew Weill are trying to foist on the public. Seriously. Do some community service work sometime. Real work, no new age workshops about "wellness". Learn something before you embarrass yourself any further.
I expected a somewhat thoughtful post from you
I would be a heart patient today if I had listened to doctors. As is, I'm in the best health of my nearly 60 year life. Don't get me wrong: I have no axe to grind with doctors. But the medical industrial establishment? I'd rather live and die without them.