10 Responses to “Should Our Health Care System Pay For The Cost Of Alternative Medical Treatments?”

1. 

   Zambiti said on Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 21:31

   Oh, Please, NO!! Our family only uses alternative med except for broken bones and emergency care. The skyrocketing cost of allopathic (MD) care is sped on by the insurance industry. Alternative Medicine is still affordable, and paid out of pocket by most people more easily than car maintenance or most other incidental household bills.
   The last thing Alternative Medicine practitioners need is the hassle of an insurance company decided what treatments their patients can or can’t pay for!! I’d be all for a complete and total outlawing of health insurance and it corruptness altogether.
   BTW – Our family has been health insurance free for over 10 years now, and even with a 3 day hospitalization, and an ER trip for broken bones, our solidly middle class family pays out of pocket with no problem. The hospitals and doctors love patients who pay cash, and don’t try to defraud us, since we check our own bills.
   For an interesting article about how how health care costs have risen in relationship to insured population:http://www.marketmed.org/history.asp
2. 

   purplera said on Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 23:42

   Most definitely! What is health care? Taking care of our health right? Natural medicine is taking care of our health. Because we are so use to taking a man made chemical to help with our health, how is taking an herb any different? It comes from nature and works and in a lot of cases much cheaper than a drug. A lot of alternative treatments are working for people and that scares western medicine especially pharmaceutical companies. Natural medicine is the reason I am alive and healthy. When all MD’s could do was cut me open again and again, natural medicine came to my rescue and I’m grateful for it. I may be a long time until ALL insurance companies will pay for these services but there are some that offer plans that do cover these expenses.
3. 

   Rli R said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 1:10

   I truly believe our health care system should pay for the cost of alternative medical treatments. They are less invasive than regular medicine (but check the regular doctor out first). Also, prescription medicine has side effects that natural herbs and vitamins don’t have.
   I think alternative medicine is geared more for preventive medicine and if you can prevent yourself from getting disease that can cause heart attacks, strokes, etc. before the fact, then the health care system wouldn’t be paying so much for by-pass surgery, nursing homes for stroke victims, etc.
   There are a lot of hospitals and doctor’s offices out there that only deal with the problem when you are hurting. We are like a car, if you give it tune ups and change the oil regularly, it will last a long time. If you hear a rattle in the engine and don’t do anything about it until it freezes up – it costs so much more. We are like that car. Maintaining proper health before you are sick is the best way to go to stay healthy. If you start showing signs of illness (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, heart palpitations, etc), you’ve waited too long.
   And, another thing I think should be covered by our health care system is a better dental plan. It covers preventive just fine – teeth cleaning – but if you have always taken care of your teeth and you develop an infection in the pocked of one tooth, they don’t normally cover the removal of that tooth, the bone graft to replace the lost bone from the infection, and the replacement of that tooth. A lot of our illnesses start with our mouth. A person may eat a nice balanced healthy diet until they lose an important tooth (like in the front or molars). Then the diet changes, softer foods are introduced – processed foods, less variety, and the health changes. The person may start eating on one side of their mouth and mess up the alignment of their jaw. Or, they don’t see a dentist anyway, the infection stays, the jaw bone is eroded away, infection enters the bloodstream, the body tries to fight the inflammation, which raises the CRP test results, other blood factors, and the arteries are harmed with scar tissue from the blood trying to fight the infection.
   To take on the con side, if the natural health arena was covered by health care, the costs would go up considerably because it’s covering more procedures. Those whose health is already damaged are using the operating rooms to fix what is broken at the same time the healthy people are starting to use the natural health care.
   In the long run, the insurance company may save money but most are interested in the present dollar – not the long-term effect. They may not be around for the long-term.
   I also wanted to make a comment about National Healthcare. When I visited Canada (which has National Healthcare), the people I spoke with didn’t like it. They could go anytime to see a doctor but if anything major was required (heart surgery, etc.) they had to go on a waiting list and could die before their name came up for the surgery. Also, to offset their National Healthcare, they have a tax to help their nation balance the budget. For instance, at the time we went up there (1994) in Saskatchewan, they had 8% Provincial tax and 8% national tax. Would you be willing to pay 16% tax on everything you purchase in the United States? I understand in England the tax rate is almost 50% – anyone in England who can verify or deny that? Both have National Healthcare.
4. 

   wyntur1 said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 2:57

   Yes they should massage is more beneficial than drugs in many cases of pain and stress.
5. 

   old cat lady said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 5:59

   Do you know that $86 BILLION was spent in 2005 for help with human back pain – that’s surgeries and prescription medicine. That’s a 65% increase since 1997 – a 171% increase in drug use. That’s my tax money and yours. Are these people “cured” or do they feel better? Most likely not and being drugged up to the eyeballs is not a way for a human to live.
   I have the typical spinal deteriorations of an elderly person. I did a lot of Feldenkrais work to learn to use my body in a less stressful way. I paid for that.
   I use the YMCA regularly (three times a week) to exercise in the water. I pay for that membership every month. I do not take any pain medications, though Medicare reduced my monthly allotment by $20 this year because of increasing drug costs. Were I to use drugs I would still have to pay for them so I am forced to have less money and pay for others’ drug costs.
   Yes, I do feel that our health care system should pay for my “alternative” medical treatments! (About $600 per year in Y membership).
6. 

   Opus said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 10:37

   Ye gods, NO! At least not all of them.
   The health care system should only pay for those treatments that can prove that they work. (Most insurance companies already use this criterion.) Since the majority of “alternative” medicine is UNPROVEN medicine, my health insurance dollars should not be wasted on the charlatans that are using it. There may be some complementary therapies that are helpful and therefore worthy, but the world is full of quacks who are trying to make a quick buck from the desperate and gullible. The health care system should not be supporting them. Not at all.
   Response to Tyrone: You really should take a class in pharmacology. You apparently have no understanding of medicine at all.
7. 

   jazzfan said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 12:58

   Personally, I don’t think any routine treatments should be covered by insurance, it should only be used for emergency and catastrophic care. It you had to pay (without your insurance company paying or making co-paying) you’d call around to check the price, just like you do for any other product or service. We don’t do that with doctors and dentists (if you have dental insurance) because only certain doctors are part of our specific health plan and the insurance co will pick up part or all of the tab.
   It’s easy to see how that has distorted prices and allowed them to rise so much faster than inflation. If it were coming out of your pocket you’d comparison shop and negotiate if needed, to bring the cost down. Insurance companies don’t do that since they just pass the cost of co-pays and all payments on to subscribers to their plan.
   The same case can be made for prescription drugs, if everyone had to pay out of their own pocket for the drugs, the drug companies would have no choice but to lower prices or they wouldn’t sell any of the expensive drugs. More people would turn to alternative medicine, natural remedies and generally take better care of themselves to prevent needing a doctor visit or expensive prescription medicine.
   If the insurance companies didn’t have to make all these payments on your behalf, your premiums would come down by more than enough to offset your increased out-of-pocket expense and health care costs would finally stop rising so fast. If insurance cost only $20 a month, it wouldn’t be too hard for even the poorest person to afford it.
8. 

   Laura J said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 16:37

   The pros are lowering health insurance costs so that it is affordable for everyone because there would be less disease!
   The third leading cause of death is medical mistakes from properly prescribed drugs which is more than the cost of cardio vascular and diabetes care combined and is driving our “cost of being sick” so high that people are forced to end up on disability.
   If the pharmaceutical companies were not so greedy, we would have had integrative health a long time ago and we wouldn’t be in a world of disease.
   Alternatives creates better moral for the overworked nursing staff and health goes up in hospital employees on alternatives, and the patients benefit, because they get less medications, less complications and insurance goes way down while the quality of life goes up.
   Get the book called “The Cost of Being Sick” by Nickolas Webb and “The Antioxidant Miracle” written by an MD.
   70% of premature deaths are due to lack of antioxidants – “The Antioxidant Miracle.”
   All prescribed drugs leave a nutritional deficiency in their wake – See Natures Food Patch.
9. 

   The Educ8r Thanks and so-Long said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 18:55

   price comparision of health care (medical) and natural health care the price in premiums will probably outweigh the price of the regular naturopath’s doctor’s visit.
   The price the person pays in premiums they might as well pay for the service.
   In response to Opus – the medical care field is NOT healing it’s just covering up symptoms. On going Prescription drugs that DON’T cure.
10. 

    Maggs said on Thursday, September 17, 2009, 22:35

    After they pay for sCAM and it doesn’t work then they have to pay again when the patient goes to real doctor. So no they shouldn’t pay for sCAM.
    LauraJ I eagerly await your next email ).