Dr. Dean Ornish, Don't Tread on Me: Transcending the Left Wing/Right Wing Health Care Debate

[BREMPRO]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-dean-ornish/dont-tread-on-me-transcen_b_271111.html

"For the past 32 years, I have directed a series of research studies showing that changes in diet and lifestyle can make such a powerful difference in our health & well-being, how quickly these changes may occur, and how dynamic these mechanisms can be.

We used high-tech, state-of-the-art measures to prove the power of simple, low-tech, and low-cost interventions. We showed that comprehensive lifestyle changes may stop or even reverse the progression of coronary heart disease, prostate cancer, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and other chronic conditions that account for at least 75% of the $2.1 trillion in health care costs.

I thought that when we published our findings in the leading medical journals that this would change medical practice. In retrospect, that was a little naïve; good science is important but not sufficient to change medical practice. Despite the talk about evidence-based medicine, we really live in an era of what I call "reimbursement-based medicine"--it's all about the Benjamins.

I realized that it wasn't enough to have good science; we also needed to change reimbursement. We doctors do what we get paid to do and we get trained to do what we get paid to do. Therefore, if we could change reimbursement, then we would improve both medical practice and medical education. "

"I understand those who think that single-payer health care is the way to go. However, after needing 14 years to get Medicare to do something as obvious as paying for intensive lifestyle changes scientifically proven to reverse heart disease despite the strong personal support of those at the highest levels of government and the leading experts in the scientific community, I share the Republican concern about greatly expanding the power of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. I'm as deeply suspicious of big government as anyone. I'm strongly in favor of universal coverage but not single payer.

But I also understand the anger at large insurance companies that drop coverage on people who get sick or lose their jobs, or who don't provide coverage for 48 million Americans who are uninsured. Again, too much power concentrated in too few institutions often leads to abuses of power to the detriment of the American people.

There is a third alternative. The idea that changing our lifestyle can prevent and even reverse the most common, the most deadly, and most expensive diseases transcends the old left wing/right wing, red state/blue state divisions. These are profoundly human issues that we can all support, bringing together liberals and conservatives, labor and management.

For Democrats, it's a way to make true health care (not just sick care) available to the 48 million uninsured while reducing costs rather than dramatically increasing them, as I outlined in an earlier column.

For Republicans, this approach emphasizes freedom of choice and personal responsibility, not to blame people but to empower them. These are things you can do to heal yourself, to keep you and your family healthy that also, by the way, substantially reduce health care costs while improving the quality of care"

[lib_wit_it]

1. I ain't the one who's supposed to keep me healthy--that's the doctor's job!

sarc.

That really is a reasonable approach that I hope the rational people will accept. Those who don't are the extremist haters who will never be on board anyway. They are a small group whose outrageous disdain for reason is reason enough to ignore their noise and do what's best for the country.

[PSPS]

2. A not-so-thinly veiled advertisement masquerading as an "opinion piece"

Translation: I don't want none of this outcome-based best practices stuff foisted on my "profession" of selling books and my other nefarious income streams.

[ensemble]

3. well..

14 years to get Medicare to do something.... how long to get private insurers to do something?

14 years is not much when you are talking about substantial changes.

How are we going to change lifestyle on a mass basis? What if having unhealthy, overworked people produces the highest profits?

What Dino doesn't seem to understand is that if something is good for everyone, but it doesn't turn a profit, the only way
to promote it is though evil big gub'ment.

[BREMPRO]

4. good point. Our profit driven system doesn't encourage preventive care and wellness

because there is no profit in preventing disease. I have heard Obama emphasize the importance of prevention, healthy eating and exercise recently in forums. Hopefully we have something in the legislation that does provide public education and reimbursements for wellness, healthy eating and exercise. I had a health care insurance provider about 10 years ago (tufts) that gave you FREE membership to health clubs. They gradually scaled it back and eliminated it, and i've not seen another program yet that offered the same benefit.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. He and John Mackey should get a room.

What a self-serving promotion piece.

[emsimon33]

6. Everyone should read "The China Study." Changing lifestyle

would not only reduce health care costs, but it would positively impact the planet and the quality of our lives.

[billy-s]

7. Simplistic Outlook

Dear Dr. Ornish,
Your desire to incorporate preventive and health inducing programs into the national health-care structure is admirable. Your consideration of such programs as a viable alternative to single -payer is naive and lacking in real specifics. I assume that you are proposing that we keep the current system of private health insurance and just incorporate the programs you endorse as a solution to the lack of universal coverage and rising costs in our current system. There are some simple questions that your plan does not answer, such as: How will this provide coverage for the 48 million who do not have it? - how will your plan eliminate the layers of bureaucracy in the present system that cause the huge administrative costs of our present system? While urging legislators to include preventive and lifestyle payment into a reformed system is a laudable goal, presenting this as a "third option" that will solve all our health care problems is irresponsible. The solutions that are currently being proposed will perpetuate the unworkable and unnecessarily expensive private system we now have. Just because you have had difficulty convincing your fellow physicians at the CMS to adopt these programs does not mean that every other country in the industrialized world is wrong in adopting some form of single payer model to cover all of its citizens.