Alt Med Guru Andrew Weill Says Health Care Reform Is Hopeless Because US Health Care Is Hopeless

[BurtWorm]

In effect, he's arguing that the uninsured and the undercovered should just wait until humans evolve enough to adopt a utopian view of health care--which is sort of what the GOP is arguing for, when you think about it:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/the-wrong-diagnosis_b_254227.html


...

It's impossible to make our drug-intensive, technology-centric, and corrupt system affordable. Consider that Americans spent $8.4 billion on medicine in 1950, vs. an astonishing 2.3 trillion in 2007. That's $30,000 annually for a family of four. The bloated structure of endless, marginal-return tests; patent-protected drugs and "heroic" surgical interventions for virtually every health problem simply can't be made much cheaper due to its very nature. Costs can only be shifted in various unpalatable ways.

So, a far more salient question that must be addressed is: Are we getting good health for our trillions? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding, "No." The U.S. ranked near the very bottom of the top 40 nations -- below Columbia, Chile, Costa Rica and Dominica -- in a rating of health systems by the World Health Organization in 2000. In short, we pay about twice as much per capita for our health care as does the rest of the developed world, and we have almost nothing to show for it.

I'm not against high-tech medicine. It has a secure place in the diagnosis and treatment of serious disease. But our health care professionals are currently using it for everything, and the cost is going to break us.

In the future, this kind of medicine must be limited to those cases in which it is clearly indicated: trauma, acute and critical conditions, disease involving vital organs, etc. It should be viewed as a specialized form of medicine, perhaps offered only in major centers serving large populations.

Most cases of disease should be managed in other, more affordable ways. Functional, cost-effective health care must be based on a new kind of medicine that relies on the human organism's innate capacity for self-regulation and healing. It would use inexpensive, low-tech interventions for the management of the commonest forms of disease. It would be a system that puts the health back into health care. And it would also happen to be far less expensive than what we have now.

If we can make the correct diagnosis, the healing can begin. If we can't, both our personal health and our economy are doomed.

Politicians aren't going to resolve this issue overnight. Any health care reform bill that gets jammed through Congress in the next month or two will be dangerously flawed. Washington needs to take a step back and re-examine the entire task with an eye toward achieving the most effective solution, not the cheapest and most expeditious.

[NeedleCast]

1. technology-centric

That's where I stopped reading.

Damn technology and it's life legthening and improving ways!

[Posteritatis]

8. My favorite's still the ones who say "evidence-based" as a pejorative (nt)

[supernova]

2. I've never warmed up to Weil

He comes across as a little belligerent to me, I suppose.

Yes, lets just all wait until we can all think about this rationally.

:scarcasm:

[Hello_Kitty]

3. Any discussion of health care tends to bring out the woo peddlers

So annoying

[Trillo]

4. "corrupt system"

Okay, that's when I started paying attention. Very good stuff.

It seems Weil is a dreamer.

[medeak]

5. languishing in one of his 3 waterfront homes around the world

while he was writing this?

[robdogbucky]

6. I have followed Andy Weil

for a long time, going back to his treatise on consciousness changing and the brain, "The Natural Mind," 1972.

He is somewhat biased but he is also very learned and very well versed in Western medicine, its strengths and weaknesses.

"That's where I stopped reading.

Damn technology and it's life legthening and improving ways!"

Did you not read the part in the extract posted about:

"I'm not against high-tech medicine. It has a secure place in the diagnosis and treatment of serious disease. But our health care professionals are currently using it for everything, and the cost is going to break..."

?

Andrew Weil is frustrated and that is what I read into his words here, as he is throwing his hands up saying "You haven't been listening all these years." He has taken a long, professional look at Western medicine, has seen its advantages and disadvantages up close and personal. I am willing to give him slack when he voices such an opinion as it has been interpreted here.

Also, I think he lives in Tuscon, raising organic vegetables, etc.

I would be happy to be corrected, but Andy Weil has forgotten more about this overall topic than most people, doctors inside their specialized Western niches included, will ever know.


Just my dos centavos

robdogbucky

[villager]

7. I agree with those centavos, and have always liked Weil's "whole system" approach to medicine

whether he's looking at the delivery systems of "care" in the U.S., or at a particular human body....

[Javaman]

9. A buddy of mine was just in Japan...

He had gotten a massive allergic reaction to, of all things, buckwheat.

Rushed to the hospital, everything was taken care of. They have national health care (no body seems to want to talk about Japans or South Korea's national health care, but whatever)

They told my buddy that both Eastern and Western meds are covered under the nations plan.

Need acupuncture? 7 bucks. That's it. Heck I pay 45 a pop at the local acupuncture school here in Austin.

Here in the states we are slowly returning to the caves.

[robdogbucky]

11. From a Richard Brautigan title:

"And we are all watched over by machines of loving grace."

Poor Richard, such a tortured soul, but what insights!

I have both had the wonders of Western medicine achieve miracles of sorts in my health, and disasters of sorts in my health. There was the wonder of surgery and anasthetics to set broken bones and X-Rays to plan it. There was the horror of excessive antibiotics causing allergic life-threatening reactions and miscues by surgeons more concerned about making their Wednesday Tee time than making sure they removed all the sponges before closing.

An interesting feature of Weil's general criticism of Western medicine that I found relevant, and one that can engender hours of debate, is the use of antibiotics in excess to alleviate symptoms instead of going to the source of the malady.

In other words, short-term success at the cost of long-term solutions to organic problems. He also is of the mind that most illness is the product of our own mind-body complex. This of course would not pertain to injuries sustained in accidents, etc., that we have no control over. In regard to the former he believes we should do more in the way genuine cell-building eating rather than the junk that most of us eat to promote prevention of diseases and illness before it gains a foothold in our bodies. Psychology and prevention are emphasized rather than careless self-indulgence causing harm in the long run.

Food for people not for profit, etc.

Just like healthcare for people, not for profit.

Again, more centavos


robdogbucky

[medeak]

12. followed Weil for many years

and also had communication with his reps re building a spa/health center in AZ. He's in AZ at times but has luxurious homes around the world one told me. Became a bit disillusioned as his website became all about selling products...but I do admire his holistic approach to things. However his marketing has left me disillusioned. One rep did tell me a funny story about him filling up shopping cart in AZ with red meat....and catching heat in check out line. It was for his dogs.. LOL

[xchrom]

10. weil

:crazy: