Only 20? Check the Stacks

Just today I learned from an area educational radio station that other than mainstream medicine is "mysterious".

I am not so sure if something that formed the basis of medicine in this country and has been around for 6000 or more years is mysterious.  This is especially true when you realize that there is so much existing science supporting it that has existed for many, many decades.

Surely it is just ignorance that people seem to think all of this is just something of a fad or new, and will pass along quietly.

Sure sounds strange to me since I've been studying and using natural health for over 50 years.  Even my father learned it when he was at Tulane Med School in the 1920s.

Just stop calling it alternative, integrative, or complementary.  Call it by what it has always been: Natural Health and First Medicine.

The year 2011 happens to be not only the 40th anniversary of the government's War on Cancer but also the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM), now the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). This seems like an appropriate time to look back on the founding of the OAM and the political struggles that attended its birth.

Twenty years ago, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) was chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that oversaw the $10 billion-a-year NIH budget. Harkin drafted a piece of legislation, which former Congressman Berkley Bedell (D-IA) intensively lobbied for among his former colleagues. Broadly speaking, the idea was to rectify problems that had been revealed by a report on alternative medicine from the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA).

On November 22, 1991, Congress passed Harkin's bill, mandating the formation of an "Office for the Study of Unconventional Medical Practices" within NIH. The office bypassed the roadblock to the study of complementary and alternative (CAM) treatments. Some NIH officials were not exactly thrilled when they woke up to discover an office of "quackery" plunked down in their midst. For some, it was as if the Roman Curia had capriciously sanctioned in the basement of the Vatican an office for the propagation of atheism!

The office was given a small budget of $2.2 million that first year - less than a thousandth of the overall NIH appropriation. "Though just a drop in the bucket by federal budget standards," wrote Congressional Quarterly, "the office is a symbol of the new visibility being won by medical treatments that haven't gained mainstream approval" (1/31/92). By contrast, the FY 2011 budget request for NCCAM is $132,004,000! (http://nccam.nih.gov/about/offices/od/directortestimony/0410.htm)

The acting director of the office was Stephen Croft, D. Pharm, Croft appointed an ad hoc advisory board and called its first public meeting for June 17-18, 1992. Unlike the OTA staff, the NIH warmly welcomed all those interested in alternative medicine to come and present their views. Jay Moskowitz, PhD, deputy director of the NIH, opened the meeting. His friendliness towards the initiative was palpable. Complete Article

Read more »

Posted in: first natural health news,first natural news,Health Matters,natural health,natural medicine,Ralph Moss PhD

Family Health Costs Up 7% or More in One Year

Perhaps it is time now to look at other ways to remain or get healthy. Contact us for more information: we've been educating folks on how to get well and stay healthy naturally for decades through our "Healthy Options" programs and our " Health Matters" publishing. Our "Health Forensics" and "Health Detective" programs may also be of great help.

One overlooked cost booster may be the RAC or Post-Payment Recovery Contractor (RAC) Audit.

Karen L. Smith, MD
"The escalating costs of health care cannot be subsidized by monies taken from the businesses of small physician practices."

Of all the hassles third-party payors have imposed on physicians, few are more onerous than Medicare’s “Recovery Audit Contractor” program, aka the RAC Audits. Under this program, free-agent auditors contracted by Medicare’s managed care subsidiaries, comb through claims data looking for indicators of overpayment, and then try to reclaim.

The auditors--some call them bounty hunters--may lack medical training, but they don’t lack incentive: they keep a slice of any reclaimed fees. They can show up unannounced, operate with impunity, and cause enormous personal and professional upheaval.

Karen L. Smith, a solo integrative family physician in Raeford, NC, spent the last five years fighting a RAC Audit. It began in 2005, when badge-bearing auditors representing Cigna Medicare showed up, claiming she’d been over-payed $1,551 for 91 billed services. Using an imaginary sample of 2,935 Medicare patients (Dr. Smith only had 1,287 Cigna Medicare patients) and an extrapolation formula known only to them, they claimed she owed the Fed $48,245!

With the help of a coding consultant and a good lawyer, she appealed, and CMS reviewers reduced her “obligation” to just over $18,000. Believing she had done no wrong, she considered further appeals but the legal fees and emotional toll dissuaded her. “The ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ audit we endured utilized sampling and extrapolation calculations that were not verified,” Dr. Smith says.
See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v4Sq7oDCgo&feature=email

Family of four healthcare costs $18,074
SEATTLE, May 11 (UPI) -- The cost of healthcare for a U.S. family of four is $18,074, an increase of $1,303 from last year -- the highest ever, a consulting firm says.

The Milliman Medical Index, created by Milliman Inc., an independent actuarial and consulting firm based in Seattle, tracks the changes in average annual healthcare costs for a U.S. family of four among 14 metropolitan areas covered by an employer-paid preferred provider organization.

"The cost of group insurance continues to increase at a historically-consistent pace, even with reform now the law of the land," study co-author Lorraine Mayne, Milliman principal and consulting actuary, says in a statement.

"The cost of group insurance continues to increase at a historically-consistent pace, even with reform now the law of the land. While there will be short-term cost implications, especially for particular employees and certain employers, this year reflects a continuation of the prevailing cost trends."

The healthcare cost for the family of four is calculated by the number, type and cost of healthcare services and how much the employee's health plan pays the medical providers for the services.

The medical costs range from more than $20,000 in New York, Miami and Chicago to $16,071 in Phoenix, the study said.

The complete Milliman Medical Index is at www.milliman.com.
© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

US cancer costs double in 2 decades, blamed on more patients

I appreciated what I heard Ted Turner say today about how the news business has become almost totally a reading of the AP wire releases.

I wonder where the AP story is that addresses the concern regarding why it is that there is such a sharp rise in cancer patients. Don't hold your breath for this story coming from AP, but it is something you can expect to read more about at Natural Health News - Stay Tuned, it may be the topic of an upcoming program on herbalYODA Says! LIVE.

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer – Mon May 10
ATLANTA – The cost of treating cancer in the United States nearly doubled over the past two decades, but expensive cancer drugs may not be the main reason why, according to a surprising new study.

The study confounds conventional wisdom in several respects. The soaring price of new cancer treatments has received widespread attention, but the researchers conclude that rising costs were mainly driven by the growing number of cancer patients.

The study also finds cancer accounts for only 5 percent of total U.S. medical costs, and that has not changed in the last few decades.

"I will say I'm a bit surprised," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society, who said he would have expected the proportion of cancer costs to rise.

The researchers also found that private insurers now cover a greater share of cancer treatment costs — about 50 percent — while patients' out-of-pocket costs have fallen over the past two decades.

Though taken aback by some of the findings, Lichtenfeld and other experts did not dispute the study, which compared medical cost data from the late 1980s to that of the early 2000s. But they said the picture surely has changed in the last several years.

The study is being called the first to combine national cancer costs for all types of payers and see how they've changed over time. The figures are reported in 2007 dollars.

It found that cancer treatment costs rose from nearly $25 billion in 1987 to more than $48 billion by the end of 2005.

The rise in costs is mainly due to an increase over 20 years in how many cancer patients there are, said the study's lead author, Florence Tangka of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers used data from national telephone surveys done in 1987 and from 2001 through 2005, which gathered information on medical conditions as well as who paid the bills. More than 164,000 people were surveyed.

The study did not offer precise estimates of how the number of people treated for cancer changed from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. But it showed dramatic increases in the number of cancer cases covered by the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs. Medicare, which covers the elderly and disabled, has consistently covered about a third of the nation's cancer costs. Medicaid accounts for only 3 percent.

The U.S. population is aging, and older people tend to get cancer at higher rates, Tangka noted.

Better and more advanced treatments mean more people with cancer are remaining alive, so the spending increases represent money well spent, said Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy researcher at Emory University who has focused on the cost of health care.

"It seems like we're buying increases in survival," Thorpe said.

The study is being published in Cancer, a medical journal of the American Cancer Society.

The researchers also found:

_The percentage of cancer costs from inpatient hospital care fell from 64 percent to about 27 percent. A shift to less expensive outpatient care, along with cost containment efforts by large health insurers, helped keep down increases in the costs per patient, the authors said.

_The proportion of cancer costs paid by private insurance rose from 42 to 50 percent.

_The proportion of costs paid out of pocket by patients — including copayments and deductibles — dropped from 17 percent to 8 percent.

Those last two findings surprised some experts.

Recent government reports have found that the percentage of Americans with private health insurance has been shrinking and recently hit its lowest mark in 50 years. Yet the study found that the proportion of cancer treatment costs paid by private insurance rose.

And companies have been tightening or cutting employee benefits, causing out-of-pocket costs to go up for many patients. Yet the study found that the proportion of bills paid by patients declined.

That last finding in particular was striking, said Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer.

He alluded to widely reported increases in personal bankruptcies prompted by medical bills. "There's no question that the out-of-pocket costs for some patients have risen dramatically," Lichtenfeld said.

The rising price of certain treatments also should be acknowledged, he said.

The challenge of rising prices was recognized by American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which last year released its first guidelines counseling cancer doctors on how to talk to patients about deciding between less expensive chemotherapy drugs made more sense than newer, more expensive products.

The study did not add in the cost of diagnostic tests and scans, which are cost drivers. And the data does not include the last five years, which saw some extremely pricey cancer drugs come on the market.

The picture may have changed since the study's data was collected and the U.S. economy deteriorated, said Dr. Neal Meropol, a Case Western Reserve University cancer expert who worked on the ASCO guidelines.

Newer treatments along with wider testing are driving up the overall cost of cancer care, Meropol said.

"My concern is that costs are getting shifted to patients and there is a potential for increasing disparities" in cancer care, he added.

Still, no focus in prevention.

Read more »

Posted in: cancer costs rise,health care costs,health costs rise 7% in one year,Health Matters,Healthy Options,Ted Turner

Natural Cures for Clinton's Maladies

Now that we have been bombarded with Bill Clinton's health status for the last two days, I wonder just how many people won't get the kind of health care he has had during this time. It is something to think about as AP's Marilynn Marchione, AP Medical Writer, writes that he "...has a new lease on life, but there's no cure for the heart disease that has twice forced the former president to get blocked arteries fixed."

Clinton's taking anti-clotting medication which has long term problems of its own and he was admonished for stopping cholesterol medication. Of course it wasn't considered that cholesterol medication doesn't do too much for atherosclerosis, and nutritional depletion from the drugs was not even mentioned.

There may be no medical cure, but certainly we know that nature cures.

In case Bill reads this while he's recovering in Chappaqua, he'd do well to research the benefits of garlic, cayenne, vitamins B-C-E, and lecithin and how these natural supplements would actually lead to better prevention and cure.

We'd like his doctors to do the same.

FMI:Low micronutrient intake may accelerate the degenerative diseases of aging through allocation of scarce micronutrients by triage.

Lecithin from HEALTH MATTERS

Bruce Ames

Read more »

Posted in: atherosclerosis,B Vitamins,Bill Clinton,cayenne,garlic,Health Matters,lecithin,natural remedies,prevent plaque build up with vitamins,vitamin C,vitamin E

herbalYODA Joins Expert Panel

The Founder and Director of CHI (Creating Health Institute) and The Oake Centre for natural health education joins an expert panel at a national organization. This group will help inform the public about key issues facing the growing natural products field. The principal purpose of this project is to make industry professionals available to journalists who are seeking expert opinions.

Dr. Gayle Eversole is a long time natural health advocate and educator. Growing up in a medical family she developed her interest in natural health care at age 12, and was weaned in the 1950s on Organic Gardening and Prevention magazines.

Since that time Gayle has completed education in psychology (1963), traditional naturopathy (1968), nursing and whole systems design (1969, 74, 75, 77), Oriental Medicine (1972), Mediation and Arbitration (1982, 83) western herbalism (master herbalist - 1985), Ethics and counseling (1991), therapeutic aromatherapy (1998), Ayurveda (2000), homeopathy and flower essence therapy (2002).

In addition Gayle is a Reiki master and teacher, deeply involved in the study and use of American indigenous herbalism, and a certified Voice BioAnalysis practitioner. She holds many other professional certifications.

Eversole's organization is a 501c3 tax exempt organization which has provided community and college based education; corporate wellness programs; consultation to health care professionals and the supplement industry; to business, organizations, and elected officials (municipal, state and federal); established three community based natural health libraries, and a veteran's resource program. And she develops and manufactures targeted nutritional and herbal supplements.

Gayle is a highly respected educator, speaker, author and writer who is often sought by the media and natural health venues for interviews and her expertise.

She has been associated with Keep Hope Alive, PFPC, the American Herbalist's Guild (AHG), Safe Harbor Project, The Flower Essence Society, Idaho Coalition for Natural Health and works closely with The Silver Valley Community Resource Center (www.silvervalleyaction.com).

Eversole's organization is based in the Pacific NW, yet the programs and services reach around the world.

Currently she working on natural product production of her unique xtreme sports supplement - ADVENTURX - several other supplements and herbal remedies. Gayle publishes a BLOG, Natural Health News (2004), and two web sites: leaflady.org (1991) and simply4health.org (2006). She has published numerous books and articles as well as her Healthy Handouts series and contributed to numerous books and articles on natural health. Her column, Health Matters, has been featured in mainstream media since 1991, and she has written Natural Notes on Health since 2002. Eversole also publishes two subscription newsletters, herbalYODA Says! and the Diabetes E-list.

Gayle is the proud parent of two daughters and wishes to acknowledge her Choctaw heritage and deep connection with indigenous communities everywhere.

Read more »

Posted in: 2009,Health Matters,herbalYODA Says,natural health expert,natural health news,Natural Notes on Health,Natural Products Foundation,simply4health,the leaflady