Please watch
the videos below:
the videos below:
Watch the video below
for an overview of
Single Payer PLUS+
The video below
is from 2011.
Not much has changed.
is from 2011.
Not much has changed.
As written, The Medicare For All Act of 2019 (H.R. 1384) is incomplete and is lacking in many ways. None of the other proposed legislation currently before Congress is adequate.
The purpose of this website is to...
1. Offer a number of suggestions for amendments that should be added to, or incorporated into, the Medicare For All Act of 2019 (H.R. 1384) in order to improve its chances of being enacted into law, and to improve the likelihood that the system, as implemented, will be beneficial and remain financially solvent.
2. Implement a system that actually improves everyone's health rather than just rearranges the manner in which (every year) trillions of dollars are fed to the gluttonous, bottomless pit of the government sponsored monopoly that is the Medical, Hospital and Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex.
How is
Single Payer Plus+
different than other
health care plans?
The amendments listed below are intended to provide a framework for the "Plus+" portion of Single Payer Plus+
CLICK ON THE AMENDMENTS
BELOW FOR MORE INFO...
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AMENDMENT #13:
Pay practitioners
to keep people healthy
not just treat symptoms.
Pay practitioners
to keep people healthy
not just treat symptoms.
Is Health Care a Human Right?
No. Health care is not a human right. By definition, a human right does not involve forcing someone else to do something for you. That would be a violation of their rights.
However, health care CAN be a benefit to which you have a legal right as part of your participation in a social contract between yourself and the other members of your community or nation.
Providing emergency, life-saving health care and long term care to those who need it is a moral obligation that America should be ready, willing and able to provide to every member of our society.
However, before such care can be considered a benefit to which you have a rightful claim, the specific details of the types of care to be included must first be clearly defined.
Second, the amounts that health care providers are to be paid for their services must also be clearly defined.
Third, a clear understanding of exactly what each member of society will be expected to do or pay into the overall system must be clearly defined.
We must be ready, willing and able to collectively pay for systems that improve and maintain health, prevent disease, and provide remedial care for those who need it through a system that is adequately funded so as to maintain the long term viability of our social contract.
Then and only then can health care become part of a democratically agreed upon social contract that will make health care a benefit that can be enjoyed by everyone in America.
However, health care CAN be a benefit to which you have a legal right as part of your participation in a social contract between yourself and the other members of your community or nation.
Providing emergency, life-saving health care and long term care to those who need it is a moral obligation that America should be ready, willing and able to provide to every member of our society.
However, before such care can be considered a benefit to which you have a rightful claim, the specific details of the types of care to be included must first be clearly defined.
Second, the amounts that health care providers are to be paid for their services must also be clearly defined.
Third, a clear understanding of exactly what each member of society will be expected to do or pay into the overall system must be clearly defined.
We must be ready, willing and able to collectively pay for systems that improve and maintain health, prevent disease, and provide remedial care for those who need it through a system that is adequately funded so as to maintain the long term viability of our social contract.
Then and only then can health care become part of a democratically agreed upon social contract that will make health care a benefit that can be enjoyed by everyone in America.
Disease Management
or
Holistic Health?
Unfortunately, in its current form, H.R. 1384 only seeks to rearrange how the gluttonous beast of the Medical, Hospital and Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex is to be fed. It fails to recognize that pouring money into a system that is dedicated to disease management will never improve health. The Achilles heel of H.R. 1384 is that it fails to demand that the spending of money be connected to positive health outcomes.
Our system is deeply flawed. Numerous statistics document that our health outcomes are disappointing and most people will be shocked to find that medical mistakes are actually the third leading cause of death in America.
The current focus of "Medicare For All" is misguided. Providing more of something that is clearly not working to more and more people is NOT going to improve our overall health. A different approach must be taken.
The only way to truly reduce the cost of "health care" in America is to improve the "health" of all Americans. We should be focused on improving health and preventing dis-ease, not just on saving money on inadequate systems that only manipulate the symptoms disease.
Freedom of Choice
Must Be Included In Our
National Health System
Providing the freedom to choose natural, safe and effective methods of health maintenance and disease prevention should have been incorporated into the U.S. Constitution but, unfortunately, the right to choose such natural and inexpensive methods was not protected by our Founding Fathers.
NOW is the time for all of us, as a nation, to come together and discuss the issues that have been swept under the rug for far too long.
Please watch
the video below.
Additional issues that should probably be included in "Single Payer Plus+ but may need to be legislated separately:
- Develop uniform data, record keeping, payment and reimbursement systems.
- Remove subsidies for industrial practices that tend to harm health.
- Stop subsidizing bad farming practices.
- Reduce the cost of medical training and expand its scope to include nutrition and other natural health methods.
- Legalize cannabis (AS A FOOD, NOT A DRUG - IMPORTANT) and incorporate it into health protocols.
- Strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency and increase its funding.
- Strengthen the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
- Increase subsidies for nutritious school breakfasts and lunches.
- Label GMOs.
- Study the dangers of EMF pollution (5G) and delay its unlawful implementation.
- Subject Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to much stricter regulations.
- Prohibit the marketing of overly-processed and sugary foods to children.
- Prohibit direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical drugs.
- Focus first on non-pharmaceutical (nutritional) protocols to address mental health.
- Treat drug addiction as a mental health issue, and not as illegal activity. Take the money we spend on the War on Drugs and spend it on rehabilitation.
- Repeal anti-trust exemptions that apply to pharmaceuticals and other aspects of the health industry.
Please watch
the video below.
The following excerpts are from Marianne Williamson's campaign website.
https://www.marianne2020.com/issues/healthcare
The biggest problem with America’s health care system is that it is not a health care system so much as a sickness care system. It reflects an outdated perspective on health and healing, in which far too little attention is given to the actual cultivation of health and prevention of disease.
Our government exists to work for us – not for health insurance companies or any other corporate entities whose short-term profits may or may not align with our ultimate well-being. And when we discuss who is going to pay for our health coverage, we should also discuss environmental, food, chemical and agricultural policies that contribute to our being sick in the first place.
Policy changes that help prevent and reverse chronic disease and cultivate optimal health will, in addition to helping Americans live more vibrant and healthy lives, save taxpayers trillions of dollars. We need to do more than figure out who is paying for whose disease; we need a president who understands the many policies that contribute to Americans’ illnesses.
From environmental policies, to chemical policies, to food policies, to agricultural policies, to animal policies, to pharmaceutical policies, the health of the American people should be of greater concern to the US government than the profits of corporate entities too often not held accountable for the toxicity their products produce.
The shift to a genuine health care system would involve attention to environmental, agricultural, chemical and nutritional factors which America’s current corporate-dominated system of governance would presumably resist. Yet if America is to deal with our serious issues involving chronic disease and obesity, we must look deeply at the causes of disease and not simply their treatment.
The Environmental Protection Agency needs to have its power restored as protector of our environment and thus our health. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act must be restored in full, and bans on dangerous pesticides once again vigorously established and enforced. Genetically engineered food should be labeled.
The Food and Drug Administration needs to have its power restored so that it can once again guard the American people from toxic substances that should not be on our shelves. Contaminants in our water should be vigorously regulated. And our children’s food, particularly school lunches, should be far more filled with healthy ingredients.
Until America comes to terms with how much we have acquiesced to the many unhealthy practices that should be considered unlawful -- but which are currently allowed in order to increase corporate profits -- we will continue to have a less-than-meaningful discussion of how as a society we provide health care.
The issue of health care in America strikes at a key question regarding America’s first principles. Lincoln said we’re to be a government, “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and it is ours to decide now whether or not we agree.
A government “for the people” is just that. Applying the resources of our government to providing such a fundamental right as access to health care should be a given, as it is in all other advanced democracies. Those who promote the idea that market forces alone should govern our society have promulgated propagandistic memes to dissuade the American people from claiming the right to universal health care.
Policies that exist to serve nothing more than profit maximization for industries such as fossil fuel companies, chemical companies, food companies, health insurance companies, big agricultural companies and pharmaceutical companies contribute to the chronic illnesses suffered by millions of Americans.
Environmental policies such as gutting the Clean Water Act, overturning bans on pesticides, and disempowering the Food and Drug Administration from properly monitoring our food supply, damage our health. Big Agricultural policies promoting and subsidizing cash crops over healthier options – all contribute to the chronic illnesses that plague millions of Americans.
The issue is not just the cost of health care, but the larger cost we are paying – the human cost of being sick so much and so often. Not just a cost to our pocketbooks, but the cost to the quality, and even length, of our lives.
The corporate dominance of our political decision-making because of the undue influence of corporate money on our political system has not only corrupted our politics; it has corrupted our food supply, our soil, our air, and our water.
In effect, what we have now is a “disease management” system, not a “health care” system. Half of Americans now have at least one chronic disease, four in ten have multiple. From heart disease, to diabetes, to cancer, to auto-immune diseases, to asthma, many chronic diseases are preventable. Even when they have already manifested, if treated at their root cause, they are far more manageable to deal with and often even reversible.
Everything about American life today – including the economic pressure that leaves 40% of Americans living with chronic stress over whether they can make basic costs of health care, rent, transportation, and education – contributes to the higher trend of chronic disease.
SPECIFICS:
Our government exists to work for us – not for health insurance companies or any other corporate entities whose short-term profits may or may not align with our ultimate well-being. And when we discuss who is going to pay for our health coverage, we should also discuss environmental, food, chemical and agricultural policies that contribute to our being sick in the first place.
Policy changes that help prevent and reverse chronic disease and cultivate optimal health will, in addition to helping Americans live more vibrant and healthy lives, save taxpayers trillions of dollars. We need to do more than figure out who is paying for whose disease; we need a president who understands the many policies that contribute to Americans’ illnesses.
From environmental policies, to chemical policies, to food policies, to agricultural policies, to animal policies, to pharmaceutical policies, the health of the American people should be of greater concern to the US government than the profits of corporate entities too often not held accountable for the toxicity their products produce.
The shift to a genuine health care system would involve attention to environmental, agricultural, chemical and nutritional factors which America’s current corporate-dominated system of governance would presumably resist. Yet if America is to deal with our serious issues involving chronic disease and obesity, we must look deeply at the causes of disease and not simply their treatment.
The Environmental Protection Agency needs to have its power restored as protector of our environment and thus our health. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act must be restored in full, and bans on dangerous pesticides once again vigorously established and enforced. Genetically engineered food should be labeled.
The Food and Drug Administration needs to have its power restored so that it can once again guard the American people from toxic substances that should not be on our shelves. Contaminants in our water should be vigorously regulated. And our children’s food, particularly school lunches, should be far more filled with healthy ingredients.
Until America comes to terms with how much we have acquiesced to the many unhealthy practices that should be considered unlawful -- but which are currently allowed in order to increase corporate profits -- we will continue to have a less-than-meaningful discussion of how as a society we provide health care.
The issue of health care in America strikes at a key question regarding America’s first principles. Lincoln said we’re to be a government, “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and it is ours to decide now whether or not we agree.
A government “for the people” is just that. Applying the resources of our government to providing such a fundamental right as access to health care should be a given, as it is in all other advanced democracies. Those who promote the idea that market forces alone should govern our society have promulgated propagandistic memes to dissuade the American people from claiming the right to universal health care.
Policies that exist to serve nothing more than profit maximization for industries such as fossil fuel companies, chemical companies, food companies, health insurance companies, big agricultural companies and pharmaceutical companies contribute to the chronic illnesses suffered by millions of Americans.
Environmental policies such as gutting the Clean Water Act, overturning bans on pesticides, and disempowering the Food and Drug Administration from properly monitoring our food supply, damage our health. Big Agricultural policies promoting and subsidizing cash crops over healthier options – all contribute to the chronic illnesses that plague millions of Americans.
The issue is not just the cost of health care, but the larger cost we are paying – the human cost of being sick so much and so often. Not just a cost to our pocketbooks, but the cost to the quality, and even length, of our lives.
The corporate dominance of our political decision-making because of the undue influence of corporate money on our political system has not only corrupted our politics; it has corrupted our food supply, our soil, our air, and our water.
In effect, what we have now is a “disease management” system, not a “health care” system. Half of Americans now have at least one chronic disease, four in ten have multiple. From heart disease, to diabetes, to cancer, to auto-immune diseases, to asthma, many chronic diseases are preventable. Even when they have already manifested, if treated at their root cause, they are far more manageable to deal with and often even reversible.
Everything about American life today – including the economic pressure that leaves 40% of Americans living with chronic stress over whether they can make basic costs of health care, rent, transportation, and education – contributes to the higher trend of chronic disease.
SPECIFICS:
- Require our healthcare system to reimburse medical professionals for a broader array of lifestyle and nutrition support, focused on preventing disease and/or addressing root causes.
- Longer visits with doctors and/or their support staff to better equip patients with skills necessary to make lifestyle changes.
- Provide patients with more robust ongoing support from nutritionists, health coaches, therapists and mental health, exercise specialists, and other peripheral lifestyle treatment providers.
- Integrate world-class technology and systems for better collaboration and cost-savings among healthcare providers.
- Fund programs in all our educational systems, pre-k through college, designed to teach nutrition and lifestyle skills to help cultivate long-term health.
- Restrict the marketing of overly-processed and sugary foods to our children.
- Stop subsidies for agricultural production of unhealthy foods, like high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats, and incentivize and subsidize farmers, ranchers and food companies for more healthy food production, making it more affordable and available.
- Shape food policies using cutting-edge public health science instead of following the lead of lobbyists for industries whose sole focus is profit.
- Secure and expand the role of the EPA and the FDA to keep toxins out of our environment and food supplies.
- Take a national look at stress levels, and develop ways to lower stress societally. That means adding vacation time, protecting a manageable work week, and taking a close look at how our electronic devices impact our lives. Just as the FDA is supposed to make recommendations about how we eat, the FDA should study, and make constructive recommendations, on how we consume data from our phones and devices.
- We need to develop healthy habits at a community level. Towns and cities can, and should, look collectively at how active their populations are, and institute more ways to increase physical activity through walking paths, bike paths, and community events. The diet of entire cities should be reviewed, as well as ways that communities can contribute to one another’s daily health.
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should investigate how hospitals overcharge patients, and the Justice Department antitrust division should explore ways to remove as much of the profit motive out of medicine as we can.
- The Center for Disease Control should invest more research into preventing disease, rather than treating symptoms and look broadly at vulnerabilities in the system (like avoiding pandemics by encouraging healthy disease avoidance behaviors).
- We also need to find non-pharmacological ways to treat mental health issues, and to take all mental health issues as seriously as physical issues, and reduce the stigma of mental health illnesses, so that more will seek and receive treatment.
- We need to treat drug addiction as a mental health issue, and not as illegal activity. Only by de-criminalizing drugs can we break the back of cartels and drug dealers, while getting addicts into recovery.
The following excerpts are from Marianne Williamson's campaign website.
https://www.marianne2020.com/issues/the-whole-health-plan
The best health care is preventing people from getting sick. The definition of “health care” will be expanded to include access to health and wellness services that have been scientifically proven to promote health and mitigate disease; namely, nutrition education and counseling, exercise, stress reduction and community supports.
We need to actively support health by expanding preventive care and adopting complementary medicine that’s scientifically proven to be effective, like Integrative and Functional medicine. In this century, research is showing ever more clearly that most illnesses can be prevented or mitigated by eating a good diet, getting exercise, reducing stress levels and maintaining healthy relationships.
We need much more robust data about diets and better research. This needs to be publicly financed research which has dried up considerably, leaving much of the medical research to be sponsored by companies which often have a vested interest in the outcome.
Today’s health care system puts an unbalanced focus on treating the symptoms of illness at the expense of treating their cause. Until we ask why so many of us experience chronic illness to begin with – far more than do the citizens of comparably wealthy countries – then we will continue to experience unsatisfactory results in health care.
The problem in America is not just that our current healthcare system fails to adequately treat sickness. The problem is also that our current economic system, based as it is on an inordinate focus on short-term profit, actually increases the probability of sickness.
The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study showed that changes in nutrition and lifestyle factors could potentially prevent 93% of diabetes, 81% of heart attacks, 50% of strokes and 36% of all cancers. Addressing these factors is so essential to good health. Programs that are proven to be effective at helping people adopt these approaches will be covered as a health expense.
Healthy food, healthy water, and healthy air are regularly sacrificed at the altar of short term profits of food, big agricultural and chemical companies. A stress-free lifestyle is sacrificed at the altar of corporate greed, making the average American have to work harder and longer for less money, with too little time and energy for health-enhancing activities. Social determinants such as food and income contribute heavily to the physical condition of our bodies, and cannot be ignored in any serious discussion of creating a healthier America.
We [must] begin with a concerted effort to remove toxins in our water, food and air that increase the probability of illness. The Food and Drug Administration as well as the Centers for Disease Control [must] regain their rightful power and authority to protect Americans from overreach by corporate forces that would sacrifice our health in favor of short term profits. No longer will government agencies cover up for, cozy up to, or in any way serve the entities whose overreach they were established to protect us from.
We must address unhealthy water and air, higher toxin exposures such as lead, and limited opportunities to purchase healthy food because of low availability and high cost, all factors which impact health.
Improve food quality. Poor diet is one of the leading causes of premature death and chronic disease. Research into which foods can help us be healthier and live longer should be expanded.
We must move beyond the current disease care system, and build a true healthcare system. Health and wellness will be proactively supported. We must promote healthy eating through nutrition education, encourage active lifestyles by building more parks with walking paths and physical recreation equipment, and provide greater access to bicycles. We should provide refundable tax credits for gym memberships, supporting people in putting healthy eating and regular exercise into their lives.
Centers providing stress-reduction benefits like yoga and meditation, and community centers promoting connections that help us care for ourselves and each other, will be government subsidized. We must act on the knowledge that stress suppresses the immune system, and reducing stress will improve our health. The reduction of cost not only in terms of health, but also in terms of our economy, will be enormous. Health promotion and disease prevention can save billions of dollars.
We must reduce toxins in our environment and our food that can lead to illness. A world class environmentalist should lead the EPA and scientists should lead USDA and FDA to conduct research that is untainted by corporate interests. An inter-agency work group should assess ways to reduce the negative impact of these toxins on our health. We must encourage and incentivize regenerative agriculture and reduce the use of pesticides. We must enforce consumer protections by more regular and serious food inspections.
Many chemicals can cause illness. We must reduce toxins in our environment that can lead to illness. Clean water and clean air are essential. There has been an erosion of environmental protection which is having a negative health impact currently. The access to potable water is an issue for many Native Americans and inner-city residents. The exposure to air pollutants is inversely tied to socioeconomic status.
We must support the strong recommendation of the CDC to phase out the practice of using antibiotics to promote growth in farm animals, and end the inhumane practice of animal factory farming. Overuse of antibiotics in animals leads to increased risk of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Up to half of antibiotic use in humans and much of antibiotic use in animals is unnecessary and inappropriate and makes everyone less safe,” the CDC stated. “Stopping even some of the inappropriate and unnecessary use of antibiotics in people and animals would help greatly in slowing down the spread of resistant bacteria.”
We will encourage regenerative agriculture and reduce the use of pesticides in food. We will enforce consumer protections by more regular and serious food inspections.
Keep weed killer out of our food:
Many weed killers like Monsanto’s Roundup have the herbicide glyphosate in them, which ends up in our food. This herbicide has been linked with cancer by the World Health Organization and the state of California. Glyphosate is the world’s most commonly used weed killer. Some foods including commonly used cereals have it. It is primarily used as a weed killer, but is also used to harvest crops like oats, wheat and barley.
A recent study by researchers from the University of Washington shows that exposure to glyphosate raises the cancer risk by 41%. After being sued for selling Monsanto’s Roundup without adequate cancer warnings, the retailer Costco has stopped selling the product. We need strong action to keep dangerous herbicides and pesticides out of our food.
Provide major funding for research and education around how health is impacted by nutrition, exercise, stress, community and toxins in our food and environment.
Support effective leading-edge approaches like Integrative and Functional medicine—which take a whole body systems approach to cultivating health and healing disease.
Add coverage for programs that promote health by improving diet, increasing exercise, managing stress and providing social supports in ways that are scientifically shown to prevent and even reverse disease.
Future drug development should be conducted by the NIH to eliminate the profit incentive and give the government the patents to produce the drugs if prices are high.
Restore and expand funding for comparative effectiveness research to find the most effective treatment options to improve health. Studies will include nutrition, exercise, and complementary medicines along with other treatments. These approaches can lead to both better health and dramatic cost savings.
Require health professionals to inform patients of different options for treatment. Just as financial professionals who are fiduciaries are required to recommend investments which they believe are best for the client (not what brings the advisor the most commission), health professionals will be required to recommend treatments which they know are shown to be effective. For example, someone with high cholesterol can be told that one treatment is drugs with side effects, and another treatment is changes in diet and exercise.
Provide more public education around good nutrition and supports for integrating optimal nutrition into our lives. The USDA nutrition guidelines will reflect the best research not influenced by corporate interests.
Create a care delivery system better matched to our society’s needs by targeting federal health training investment toward those specialties in short supply, especially preventive care, primary care and mental/behavioral health, and will require residency programs to those training slots prior to filling any other openings. It incentivizes health professionals to practice in underserved areas.
Value-based payment methodologies incentivize health care providers to provide the most clinically effective care by paying for outcomes or a full-course of treatment with one payment. This eliminates incentives to pad treatment protocols with unnecessary patient visits or tests because they are paid for each separate service.
Value-based payment rewards evidence-based medicine, low cost approaches and coordinated, holistic approaches to health and well-being. One of the benefits of having organizations involved with value-based purchasing is that it makes them look at some of the social determinants impacting patients and work with community partners to improve health status.
Health and well-being are no longer a good fit for the “rarely occurring, individually unpredictable, one-time adverse events” which insurance is designed to address. When health insurance developed in the U.S., the main threats were debilitating infections like polio or unpredictable injuries. Today, health and well-being require predictable, ongoing investment in prevention, wellness and chronic condition management throughout one’s life in order to thrive in society.
Many health insurers such as Kaiser Permanente and many BlueCross/Blue Shield plans already operate as not-for-profit, so it is a proven viable model.
All future drug development should be conducted by the NIH – This assures that the government will have patent rights to all drugs and can produce them for patients at an affordable price if the market does not.
Administrative Simplification:
All providers should be required to use uniform data elements and structures in their electronic health records and participate in Health Information Exchanges (HIE) using inter-operable software to facilitate electronic information flow between participating health & wellness providers reducing the paper burden on patients and providers. The use of interoperable electronic health records and communication, along with uniform data sets and structure, will provide administrative simplification.
Improving Care:
Medical practice is a combination of science and human judgement. There are many treatment protocols that have never been subjected to rigorous scientific research. Restoration of research funds for comparative effectiveness research to determine which treatments are most effective will both improve people’s health and reduce cost by avoiding spending on less effective treatments.
Providers will have to certify education and training in the outcomes of these studies each year in order to make treatment recommendations for their patients. We also need to recognize that poor diet is one of the leading causes of premature death, and increase research funding related to nutrition so that people stay healthier longer.
HEALTH SERVICE AVAILABILITY:
Having health benefits coverage doesn’t help if there is no doctor or nurse available or willing to take care of you. We currently have shortages of certain types of health providers and in certain geographic areas. When these needs are not being met, society has a right and duty to correct the deficiencies.
Training the Clinicians We Need:
The current system of physician training via medical residency programs has not met society’s need for preventive care, primary care or behavioral health providers, and nurses remain in chronically short supply. Further, physicians are not provided adequate training in nutrition, exercise physiology, stress reduction or social supports, all of which are needed to achieve a healthy life.
Scholarships and student loan forgiveness programs should be expanded for nurses, nutritionists, clinical social workers and other allied health professionals deemed to be in short supply. Additionally, expanded supports from adjunct professionals like trained and certified health coaches will be promoted, which will provide patients greater support and ease the load on other health professionals.
We need to actively support health by expanding preventive care and adopting complementary medicine that’s scientifically proven to be effective, like Integrative and Functional medicine. In this century, research is showing ever more clearly that most illnesses can be prevented or mitigated by eating a good diet, getting exercise, reducing stress levels and maintaining healthy relationships.
We need much more robust data about diets and better research. This needs to be publicly financed research which has dried up considerably, leaving much of the medical research to be sponsored by companies which often have a vested interest in the outcome.
Today’s health care system puts an unbalanced focus on treating the symptoms of illness at the expense of treating their cause. Until we ask why so many of us experience chronic illness to begin with – far more than do the citizens of comparably wealthy countries – then we will continue to experience unsatisfactory results in health care.
The problem in America is not just that our current healthcare system fails to adequately treat sickness. The problem is also that our current economic system, based as it is on an inordinate focus on short-term profit, actually increases the probability of sickness.
The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study showed that changes in nutrition and lifestyle factors could potentially prevent 93% of diabetes, 81% of heart attacks, 50% of strokes and 36% of all cancers. Addressing these factors is so essential to good health. Programs that are proven to be effective at helping people adopt these approaches will be covered as a health expense.
Healthy food, healthy water, and healthy air are regularly sacrificed at the altar of short term profits of food, big agricultural and chemical companies. A stress-free lifestyle is sacrificed at the altar of corporate greed, making the average American have to work harder and longer for less money, with too little time and energy for health-enhancing activities. Social determinants such as food and income contribute heavily to the physical condition of our bodies, and cannot be ignored in any serious discussion of creating a healthier America.
We [must] begin with a concerted effort to remove toxins in our water, food and air that increase the probability of illness. The Food and Drug Administration as well as the Centers for Disease Control [must] regain their rightful power and authority to protect Americans from overreach by corporate forces that would sacrifice our health in favor of short term profits. No longer will government agencies cover up for, cozy up to, or in any way serve the entities whose overreach they were established to protect us from.
We must address unhealthy water and air, higher toxin exposures such as lead, and limited opportunities to purchase healthy food because of low availability and high cost, all factors which impact health.
Improve food quality. Poor diet is one of the leading causes of premature death and chronic disease. Research into which foods can help us be healthier and live longer should be expanded.
We must move beyond the current disease care system, and build a true healthcare system. Health and wellness will be proactively supported. We must promote healthy eating through nutrition education, encourage active lifestyles by building more parks with walking paths and physical recreation equipment, and provide greater access to bicycles. We should provide refundable tax credits for gym memberships, supporting people in putting healthy eating and regular exercise into their lives.
Centers providing stress-reduction benefits like yoga and meditation, and community centers promoting connections that help us care for ourselves and each other, will be government subsidized. We must act on the knowledge that stress suppresses the immune system, and reducing stress will improve our health. The reduction of cost not only in terms of health, but also in terms of our economy, will be enormous. Health promotion and disease prevention can save billions of dollars.
We must reduce toxins in our environment and our food that can lead to illness. A world class environmentalist should lead the EPA and scientists should lead USDA and FDA to conduct research that is untainted by corporate interests. An inter-agency work group should assess ways to reduce the negative impact of these toxins on our health. We must encourage and incentivize regenerative agriculture and reduce the use of pesticides. We must enforce consumer protections by more regular and serious food inspections.
Many chemicals can cause illness. We must reduce toxins in our environment that can lead to illness. Clean water and clean air are essential. There has been an erosion of environmental protection which is having a negative health impact currently. The access to potable water is an issue for many Native Americans and inner-city residents. The exposure to air pollutants is inversely tied to socioeconomic status.
We must support the strong recommendation of the CDC to phase out the practice of using antibiotics to promote growth in farm animals, and end the inhumane practice of animal factory farming. Overuse of antibiotics in animals leads to increased risk of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Up to half of antibiotic use in humans and much of antibiotic use in animals is unnecessary and inappropriate and makes everyone less safe,” the CDC stated. “Stopping even some of the inappropriate and unnecessary use of antibiotics in people and animals would help greatly in slowing down the spread of resistant bacteria.”
We will encourage regenerative agriculture and reduce the use of pesticides in food. We will enforce consumer protections by more regular and serious food inspections.
Keep weed killer out of our food:
Many weed killers like Monsanto’s Roundup have the herbicide glyphosate in them, which ends up in our food. This herbicide has been linked with cancer by the World Health Organization and the state of California. Glyphosate is the world’s most commonly used weed killer. Some foods including commonly used cereals have it. It is primarily used as a weed killer, but is also used to harvest crops like oats, wheat and barley.
A recent study by researchers from the University of Washington shows that exposure to glyphosate raises the cancer risk by 41%. After being sued for selling Monsanto’s Roundup without adequate cancer warnings, the retailer Costco has stopped selling the product. We need strong action to keep dangerous herbicides and pesticides out of our food.
Provide major funding for research and education around how health is impacted by nutrition, exercise, stress, community and toxins in our food and environment.
Support effective leading-edge approaches like Integrative and Functional medicine—which take a whole body systems approach to cultivating health and healing disease.
Add coverage for programs that promote health by improving diet, increasing exercise, managing stress and providing social supports in ways that are scientifically shown to prevent and even reverse disease.
Future drug development should be conducted by the NIH to eliminate the profit incentive and give the government the patents to produce the drugs if prices are high.
Restore and expand funding for comparative effectiveness research to find the most effective treatment options to improve health. Studies will include nutrition, exercise, and complementary medicines along with other treatments. These approaches can lead to both better health and dramatic cost savings.
Require health professionals to inform patients of different options for treatment. Just as financial professionals who are fiduciaries are required to recommend investments which they believe are best for the client (not what brings the advisor the most commission), health professionals will be required to recommend treatments which they know are shown to be effective. For example, someone with high cholesterol can be told that one treatment is drugs with side effects, and another treatment is changes in diet and exercise.
Provide more public education around good nutrition and supports for integrating optimal nutrition into our lives. The USDA nutrition guidelines will reflect the best research not influenced by corporate interests.
Create a care delivery system better matched to our society’s needs by targeting federal health training investment toward those specialties in short supply, especially preventive care, primary care and mental/behavioral health, and will require residency programs to those training slots prior to filling any other openings. It incentivizes health professionals to practice in underserved areas.
Value-based payment methodologies incentivize health care providers to provide the most clinically effective care by paying for outcomes or a full-course of treatment with one payment. This eliminates incentives to pad treatment protocols with unnecessary patient visits or tests because they are paid for each separate service.
Value-based payment rewards evidence-based medicine, low cost approaches and coordinated, holistic approaches to health and well-being. One of the benefits of having organizations involved with value-based purchasing is that it makes them look at some of the social determinants impacting patients and work with community partners to improve health status.
Health and well-being are no longer a good fit for the “rarely occurring, individually unpredictable, one-time adverse events” which insurance is designed to address. When health insurance developed in the U.S., the main threats were debilitating infections like polio or unpredictable injuries. Today, health and well-being require predictable, ongoing investment in prevention, wellness and chronic condition management throughout one’s life in order to thrive in society.
Many health insurers such as Kaiser Permanente and many BlueCross/Blue Shield plans already operate as not-for-profit, so it is a proven viable model.
All future drug development should be conducted by the NIH – This assures that the government will have patent rights to all drugs and can produce them for patients at an affordable price if the market does not.
Administrative Simplification:
All providers should be required to use uniform data elements and structures in their electronic health records and participate in Health Information Exchanges (HIE) using inter-operable software to facilitate electronic information flow between participating health & wellness providers reducing the paper burden on patients and providers. The use of interoperable electronic health records and communication, along with uniform data sets and structure, will provide administrative simplification.
Improving Care:
Medical practice is a combination of science and human judgement. There are many treatment protocols that have never been subjected to rigorous scientific research. Restoration of research funds for comparative effectiveness research to determine which treatments are most effective will both improve people’s health and reduce cost by avoiding spending on less effective treatments.
Providers will have to certify education and training in the outcomes of these studies each year in order to make treatment recommendations for their patients. We also need to recognize that poor diet is one of the leading causes of premature death, and increase research funding related to nutrition so that people stay healthier longer.
HEALTH SERVICE AVAILABILITY:
Having health benefits coverage doesn’t help if there is no doctor or nurse available or willing to take care of you. We currently have shortages of certain types of health providers and in certain geographic areas. When these needs are not being met, society has a right and duty to correct the deficiencies.
Training the Clinicians We Need:
The current system of physician training via medical residency programs has not met society’s need for preventive care, primary care or behavioral health providers, and nurses remain in chronically short supply. Further, physicians are not provided adequate training in nutrition, exercise physiology, stress reduction or social supports, all of which are needed to achieve a healthy life.
Scholarships and student loan forgiveness programs should be expanded for nurses, nutritionists, clinical social workers and other allied health professionals deemed to be in short supply. Additionally, expanded supports from adjunct professionals like trained and certified health coaches will be promoted, which will provide patients greater support and ease the load on other health professionals.
