It does not matter what Congress finally passes. If the legislation contains the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, it will be bad for us all. Of course the pharmaceutical industry is not the only one trying to get in on the action. The insurance industry wants its say (http://www.wtop.com/?nid=116&sid=1783734).
My question is: "Why isn't anyone looking for simple solutions?" I look at the American health care system and see only disease maintenance. Granted, this country is second to none when it comes to acute care. This is one of the best places to be if you have a heart attack or end up in a serious traffic accident. But when it comes to chronic illness, the system just wants to give you a pill and send you on your way.
What is my solution? The same one I have mentioned before, namely vitamin D. It seems like such a simple thing, but I guess if it cannot be patented no one wants to promote it. Some in the industry believe that if every American maintained a serum level of vitamin of about 50 ng/ml it would cut health care costs by 25 — 50%. Of course, one would have to calculate the effects of reduced illness (http://www.grassrootshealth.net/media/download/disease_incidence_prev_chart_101608.pdf).
Dr. Donald Miller crunched the numbers for us:
The U.S. government and its citizens currently spend $2,000 billion dollars ($2 trillion) on "health care," i.e., sickness care, each year. The cost of taking a 5,000 IU supplement of vitamin D every day for a year is $22.00. The cost for 300 million Americans taking this supplement would be $6.6 billion dollars. The number and variety of diseases that vitamin D at this dose could prevent, starting with a 50 percent reduction in cancer, is mind-boggling. If everyone took 5,000 IU/day of vitamin D, the U.S. "health care" industry would shrink. It would no longer account for 16 percent of the gross domestic product. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller25.html.)
Personally, I think he woefully underestimates the cost of vitamin D, mainly because I would only use a natural source. But even my expensive version would cost less than $300 billion if supplied to every citizen. Again, even if that only prevented half the incidence of the diseases mentioned in the chart linked above, that would cut a significant portion of the health care budget. However, this would also reduce the profits of the big players of the health care industry.
Take for example the topic of the year, H1N1 influenza. There are doctors who believe that vitamin D can make a difference between those who survive and those who unfortunately do not (http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Disease/swine_flu_deaths_what_you_need_to_know_111020090534.html). Too bad I have not heard one word about vitamin D and the flu. The government instead seems hellbent on jabbing us with concoctions, which of course costs money.
Please, do not think I am making a blanket attack on the health care industry. I am absolutely sure that many, if not most, of the individuals who work in health care genuinely want to help people. I have family members who work, and do an incredible job, in health care. However, I do believe that the industry has guided itself offtrack. "First, do no harm" seems to have gotten lost somewhere.
I believe all of the talk about health care reform is ludicrous without consider what we take into our bodies, and not just the pills and injections. Our poor nutrition as a society is slowly killing us. The food industry has foisted upon us processed, fractionated, hydrogenated, genetically modified, irradiated facsimiles of real food. It is such great hubris to think we can improve upon what humans have been eating for thousands of years.
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