The American healthcare system is broken and it's time to change the way we "do medicine." Too often we rely on treating symptoms and addressing health problems after they have reached the crisis state. This usually means hospital stays, expensive surgery and overpriced drugs with undesirable side effects.
As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, chronic disease, which can often be prevented by modifying diet and lifestyle, accounts for 75% of America's annual $2.1 trillion healthcare costs.
Everyone should have the right to choose and receive the healthcare that works best for their individual needs. But right now, the current medical paradigm makes it difficult for doctors to prescribe alternatives to drugs or surgery even when allopathic methods are not the best way to treat a patient.
Do you want the right to choose your own healthcare policy? Do you want your doctor to be able to use the most effective treatments? Do you want control over information pertaining to your health and the right to opt-out of electronic medical records?
Tell your Senator that you want meaningful healthcare reform today!
Dear [Decision Maker],
With all the discussions in Washington surrounding the need for true healthcare reform, I am shocked that the bills now being considered do not address the root cause of disease. As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, chronic disease, which can often be prevented by modifying diet and lifestyle, accounts for 75% of America's annual $2.1 trillion healthcare costs.
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I am also alarmed that various programs are being designed to determine and implement one-size-fits-all options, stifling creative innovation and giving special interests free rein to reinforce the status quo -- pushing true prevention and integrative medicine further outside of the medical system.
I do not want prevention to be defined as diagnostic tests followed by expensive and often toxic drugs. Prevention must start with diet and lifestyle. It should include dietary supplements. It should incorporate more than one style of medicine and specifically include the integrative medical model employed by many cutting edge physicians today.
I want the right to choose my healthcare policy. I oppose a one-size-fits-all insurance mandate.
I want to keep my Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts. I use them to stay healthy and to give me choices!
It is outrageous that drug companies will be guaranteed by law a place in any Comparative Effectiveness Research program. At the very least, representatives of the integrative health community should also be included. Less invasive, less expensive and more natural integrative medical treatments should be examined and compared to drugs in head-to-head studies.
I want the right to control all information pertaining to my health. Electronic Medical Records are an invasion of privacy, and I should have an option to opt out!
