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    Health For US All: The Transformation of U.S. Health Care
    Health For US All: The Transformation of U.S. Health Care
    Health For US All: The Transformation of U.S. Health Care
    Ebook184 pages1 hour

    Health For US All: The Transformation of U.S. Health Care

    By Dr Mary Zennett

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    About this ebook

    The principles of health reform are actually simple, but remain formidable due to the size and complexity of the necessary implementation.The purpose of this book, in this era of health reform, is to educate and offer potential solutions that represent an actual overhaul of the existing health care system, based on core-level principles and values:
    People and principles before profits and paperwork, founded on the Hippocratic Oath-do no harm.
    The book integrates a health reform model that incorporates health, wellness and prevention into the current illness delivery model, predicted to bankrupt the U.S. economy faster than any other sector without massive reform. Hence the urgency for widespread education on these vital reform principles- before it is too late.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublishereBookIt.com
    Release dateApr 26, 2016
    ISBN9781456601973
    Health For US All: The Transformation of U.S. Health Care

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      Book preview

      Health For US All - Dr Mary Zennett

      Care

      Preface

      AS A HEALTH-CARE PROVIDER FOR MORE than twenty years, I understand well why the time has come to think about a new health-care system.

      The principles of health transformation are actually simple, but they remain formidable because of the large-scale implementation needed. The purpose of this book is to educate and offer potential solutions that represent a complete overhaul of the existing health-care system, based on core-level principles and values.

      I graduated from a large, reputable Midwestern medical school and completed my adult psychiatry training and child/adolescent fellowship at equally well-regarded institutions. I’ve had my own thriving private practice for years and also have worked in large community mental health centers.

      I’ve cared for patients and families from all walks of life—from families very concerned about their children with ADD, bipolar disorder, and autism, to the chronically mentally ill, the homeless, and the chemically dependent. I’ve treated many active-duty soldiers, veterans, and their families.

      In the late 1990s I became so disheartened with the system that governed the practice of medicine that I completed a two-year curriculum for physicians and earned an executive MBA. This rigorous training taught me not to be afraid of the system but to evaluate the seeming complexities and components critically and strategically. I drew on those skills frequently while formulating recommendations that I believe will lead to health transformation in the upcoming decade.

      The primary purpose of any health-care delivery system is to promote the health and well-being of the people for which it cares. Our current disease-focused industry requires a large-scale transformation that places people first, promotes the quality of their lives, and is proactive about their health from before birth to their last days.

      In reality, the current U.S. health-delivery system is so complex, so bureaucratic, and so cumbersome that the patient has been lost in the equation. In their quest for health, people are caught between the two worlds of medicine: conventional medicine and complementary medicine. This book is dedicated to accelerating the integration of these two worlds of health care into a system I call transformational health. Indeed, this process has been initiated, but progress is slow. Certainly, for patients who access health care in both models, this integration cannot come fast enough.

      A transformational health-delivery system prevents illness in the first place; such a system is built on relationships, research, individualized care, and most important, hope. It seeks input from the people it serves and from the health practitioners who partner with their patients on lifelong journeys of health and healing. Transformational health integrates the best of both worlds of medicine, empowers people to get healthy and stay healthy, and operates efficiently and cost-effectively. It is a system where principles come before paperwork and people are of far greater value than profits.

      In this book, I propose a plan for the integration of conventional and complementary and alternative medicine, as well as changes—some dramatic—to the conventional system. The goal is to create a new health system—one that is much more efficient, streamlined, and focused on long-term health and quality of life for all Americans.

      I want to make the principles of health transformation understandable so every citizen—including legislators responsible for decision making—embraces them. Such a model empowers citizens, health providers, and allied health professionals to think and act proactively in advocating and crafting health-transformation efforts.

      This call to action will stretch each of us outside of our comfort zone, but it is a necessary process of any transformational effort. In reality, with the national projections for health-care costs rising in the next ten years, we do not have any other choice. The only alternative is to sit passively and watch our federal budget go bankrupt, and quite frankly, as Americans, this cannot be an option.

      The prospect of a healthy America truly affords hope for all. Besides greatly enhancing quality of life and national productivity, establishing a global model of health will set an example for other countries who, like us, are struggling with skyrocketing health costs and escalating rates of chronic illness.

      Since the first edition of this book, much is evolving in our nation's ability- or inability- to fund any aspects of health reform in a meaningful way. Any and all policy recommendations must strongly take into account progress on reducing the currently unfathomable national debt. Some hard work and bipartisan cooperation may, in time, make funding available for research studies documenting the validity of natural health and integrative medicine. For certain, any government initiatives must incorporate the voice of the American people- for this is the people's health plan, above and beyond anything else. 

      Along with writing this book, I recently founded Peace, Love and Liberty, LLC. The purpose of this organization is to educate citizens at a grassroots level and encourage activism in government and public policy. My fervent hope is that our current leaders will embrace the depth and scope of these issues and how their decisions today directly impact the American people and future generations.

      I thank each of you for your active participation in the transformation of health!

      My Best wishes,

      Dr. Mary Zennett

      Acknowledgments

      Dr. Chuck Pierce and staff (www.gloryofzion.org), for timeless guidance and inspiration

      Sherry Watson, for her tireless grassroots advocacy for the disabled

      CEO Space, for years of mentoring and collaboration

      Steve Harrison and Quantum Leap for tremendous insights

      Sue Collier and her remarkable staff at Self-Publishing Resources

      My patients and dedicated staff, who inspire and teach me daily

      Nick, for encouragement and expert technical support

      Michael, for believing this project will make a positive difference in America

      Introduction

      AS EVIDENCED IN THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, health care is at the top of the national agenda. Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary Sicko raised the public’s awareness of the more than forty-five million uninsured Americans. Heated debates have only begun to examine the pros and cons of private health insurance and single-payer health coverage.

      But a deeper crisis is looming in health care, one that is rarely articulated in public debates or by the media in relation to health reform. This crisis stems from the fact that the U.S. health-care system focuses almost exclusively on treating disease rather than preventing illness. Yet the opportunity that emerges from this crisis is likely to provide a cornerstone of health reform, cost-efficiency, and greatly enhanced quality of life. What we will discuss here impacts every American, from infants to the elderly and the disabled, from the most affluent to the poorest citizens in our country.

      The current U.S. health-care system with its billions of dollars spent on health regulations, paperwork, and financing is really only half of a system. These expenditures represent more than 15 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product¹ and are predicted to reach 20 percent before long.²

      How could this possibly represent half a system? There are two reasons.

      First, two distinct worlds of health care currently exist in the United States: The first is the conventional heathcare system, consisting primarily of medications and surgery. When we hear about health-care reform, this conventional health-care system is to what people refer.

      But the other world of medicine is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). What is CAM? CAM is a group of diverse medical and health-care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.³ CAM therapies include chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, herbs, nutritional, and mind-body therapies, among others. …[T]he major CAM systems have many common characteristics including a focus on individualizing treatments, treating the whole person, promoting self-care and self-healing, and recognizing the spiritual nature of each individual.⁴

      Although CAM is rarely referenced in terms of U.S. health reform, its methods are rising rapidly in popularity and account for billions of dollars per year in annual expenditures.⁵ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that the U.S. public spent between $36 billion and $47 billion on CAM therapies in 1997.⁶ That was more than the U.S. public paid for all hospitalizations that year and approximately one-half of the amount we paid for all out-of-pocket physician services.

      The second reason we can consider conventional medicine as only half a system is because the conventional health-care system is based on treating diseases, primarily with medications and surgeries. The current U.S. healthcare system places virtually no emphasis on wellness and prevention of disease.

      Conventional and CAM health systems are huge in their own rights, but what is most disturbing is the nearly total lack of communication between these two systems of health care. In many, if not most, conventional settings, integrating nutrition and preventative care is virtually not done. CAM settings, likewise, tend to be very antidrug and defensive toward conventional practice. Very little communication and collaboration around patient care exists among practitioners in these systems.

      Conventional doctors, often rightfully, speak to the lack of scientific evidence validating CAM modalities. CAM practitioners, also rightfully, point to the potential risks of conventional procedures and medications, surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and the like.

      The patient is caught between these two worlds, a fact illustrated in chapter 1 of this book. Informed patients stay abreast of new CAM advances largely through word of mouth and the Internet. There is a rise in public awareness that the feel ill, take a pill philosophy is not enough. Many in the United States use employer health plans and visit primary-care doctors and also use CAM on a regular basis.

      These worlds need to merge for the benefit of the patient. This transformational model of health care integrates health and wellness into mainstream conventional health care. It encourages conventional doctors to offer quality health and wellness to patients who are cared for with medications and surgeries in conventional health care. This model is driven by the premise that medications and surgeries have a role and a place. Though not all people need medications or surgery, everyone needs health and wellness. We need guidance

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