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Mercola.com

Dr. ph Mercola

All Health, No Hype

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Issue 352

August 21, 2002

Medical System is Nearing Collapse

Mc's & Biophoton

Vaccine Teleconference

Dangerous Cancer Advice on the Internet

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When You Can't Juice

Positive Reinforcement

Protein Needs of Active Individuals

Small Hand Wounds

Snakebite Treatment Methods

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The American Medical System is Nearing Collapse

By Tommy G.

We are living in the most amazing era of medicine in human history. Yet as we all know too well, all is not well with American medicine. In point of fact, we are dealing with a system of healthcare delivery that is, at its root, dysfunctional.

The problem - the crisis - is the system by which care is delivered, which has simply not matured at the same pace as the technologies and treatments now available.

I've traveled all over the country. I've traveled to Spain and Germany. I've been to Canada. I've discussed healthcare with some of the leading policymakers and caregivers in the world. And sadly, I have to report that in Western society broadly, the various systems of care are eroding with ever-greater rapidity.

I've come to one central conclusion: The way we provide care is in jeopardy of collapse. It is clouded by regulatory burdens that are confusing, duplicative and extremely time-consuming. Physicians and nurses almost have to obtain advanced degrees in business administration, accounting and jurisprudence just to run their offices from day to day. Patients have to fill out endless forms; get transferred from place to place; worry about what insurance will pay for what treatment and at what cost.

We have to fundamentally change the current healthcare delivery system in our country. The myriad rules, regulations and restrictions that make obtaining good healthcare difficult, if not impossible, have to be reviewed carefully and, when necessary, jettisoned like useless ballast.

But there's another area of reform that must - I repeat, must - be among the highest priorities we can develop: malpractice reform. America is experiencing a medical malpractice insurance coverage crisis that is increasing the cost of healthcare, decreasing access to doctors and hospitals for many patients and lowering the overall quality of care provided to patients.

Tommy G. is U.S. secretary of health and human services. This is excerpted and condensed from his remarks July 18 in Chicago to the American Medical Association

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

I believe my journalist friend Nick Regush summarized the problem quite nicely earlier this year:

"There is no way to be nice about this. There is no point in raising false hopes. There is no treatment or vaccine in sight. There is no miracle breakthrough on the horizon.

Medicine, as we know it, is dying. It is entering a terminal phase.

What began as an acute illness reached the chronic stage about a decade ago and its progression towards death has been remarkably swift and well beyond anything anyone could have predicted.

The disease is caused by conflict of interest, tainted research, greed for big bucks, pretentious doctors and scientists, lying, cheating, invasion by the morally bankrupt marketing automatons of the drug industry, derelict politicians and federal and state regulators - all seasoned with huge doses of self-importance and foul odor."

As the article above documents, and as many of us have predicted, the traditional system is ready to collapse.

I do not share this to be the purveyor of bad news, but to announce that a new day is dawning. As many of you are already aware, the drugs and surgery the existing medical establishment has foisted on you are not the solution to better health, but merely their methods of making more money off of you by treating only diseases - diseases their paradigm helped to foster in the first place. Consider that:

Retail pharmacies filled 3 billion prescriptions in the U.S. in 2000.

We are currently spending 1.4 trillion dollars for healthcare in the US, or 14% of our current overall budget. That is projected to double in the next 8 years to 3 trillion dollars, a staggering 17% of our total national output.

Folks, those are figures in trillions, not billions. Three trillion dollars is 3,000 billion dollars.

"The consequences of this shift of resources will be enormous for companies, workers and the government. It will mean a massive transfer of the nation's income, including profits, wages and tax dollars, to disease-oriented traditional medical care.

"Employees will face an increasingly stark situation: the more money they receive in on-the-job benefits, the less they'll receive in wages, pensions, or vacation time."

- From Business Week August 26, 2002 p 144.

The sad tragedy is that we are spending all of this money on disease management focused on drugs and surgery and our return on this investment is profoundly poor.

Business Week further comments:

"Perhaps one-third of all medical spending-some $600 billion dollars-may be unnecessary, out-of-date, or even dangerous treatments."

The recent articles below, each of which discusses $3 billion dollar wastes of your money, evidence this.

We are not achieving the high levels of health that we could be. Increasing amounts of people do not have the energy they need to get through the day, while millions of others are suffering with painful crippling diseases because they have violated basic health principles.

Many of you know that my goal is to facilitate the transformation of the current system that is on the verge of collapse. The approaches I have described in over 20,000 pages on Mercola.com over the last five years offer the solution to this crisis.

We can solve well over 90% of the all chronic diseases with simple, inexpensive natural therapies.

Following the eating plan and radically reducing grain and sugar intake while optimizing omega 6:3 fat ratio will likely reduce over 50% of the health problems Americans currently experience.

I know this is true because I have successfully treated many thousands of patients from all over the country with these techniques.

Mercola.com is already an outstanding health resource for you. But beginning this autumn and slated for completion at the end of the year, we will launch powerful new technology offering you a simple, one-stop method of obtaining the knowledge and advice to solve nearly any health care problem without expensive drugs, vitamin supplements, or surgeries.

My approach in providing you this solution is two-phased. The first involves establishing all the information necessary to solve your problems. This has been a massive undertaking stretching over several years, but we are rapidly nearing completion, and much of this expertise is already available to you on Mercola.com. Our refinements will include making all this wisdom even easier to access - literally putting the research and knowledge of many experts right at your fingertips.

In the second phase, targeted for completion before the end of the year, Mercola.com will offer you the world's most sophisticated database of natural medicine healthcare practitioners. You, the user community, will rate them, so you can find the outstanding practitioners closest to your home.

My experience is that even with all the right answers, many people need the guidance of such professionals to help them implement a successful health recovery or maintenance program. I am constantly saddened that so many patients fly in to see me in my office because they don't know of anyone close to them who can help them with their health problems. This is really an information problem that the Internet can easily solve, and it is my aim to do just that.

Related Articles:

Nearly $3 Trillion Dollars in U.S. Health Spending is Projected

Hypocrisy Oath -- The Great Divide Between Principal And Practice In Modern Medicine

3 Three Billion Dollar Hoaxes:

3 Billion Dollar Hoax

Another 3 Billion Dollar Hoax

Bombshell -- Major Premarin Trial Halted

Return to Table of Contents #352

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©Copyright 1997-2002 Dr. ph Mercola. . This content may be copied in full, with copyright; contact; creation; and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola is required.

Disclaimer - Newsletters are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola. They are not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and they are not intended as medical advice. They are intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.

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