We spend more than twice as much as other industrialized countries per person on healthcare services, yet are not even in the top ten  among those same countries, according to a recent study published by The Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit group that analyzed data from the World Health organization.

As reported in The New York Times,  this study also says that the administrative costs of our healthcare delivery is 7.5%, compared to 5% in other industrialized countries. Americans could save $50 billion annually by reducing administrative expenses to the same level as Germany and Switzerland, about 5%.

This is a no-brainer. Yet we continue to let our elected officials be bamboozled by healthcare lobbyists not acting in the public interest by letting them spread misleading propaganda (well-funded in part by your healthcare dollars).

The reality is that healthcare is great in this country for those with access to it, but one of the biggest problems is lack of access. Even among those who are “insured,” many have inadequate coverage.

For the uninsured, little or no health care is provided. The only possible option these people have is to go to the hospital emergency room. This contributes to the high cost of healthcare, as emergency rooms are extremely expensive when used as a defacto community healthcare clinic.

If you aware of these facts, Michael Moore’s  healthcare documentary Sicko presents no surprises. While he uses creative license to dramatize his case, the truth speaks for itself. We are, in my opinion, the poorest rich country on the planet, in part because of deceptive and unscrupulous lobbying on the part of our so-called healthcare industry.

Another possible factor for the high cost of healthcare may be overmedication—our reliance on the expensive pharmaceuticals seen daily in a barrage of TV ads. A nurse I know stated that, in her professional opinion,  overmedication is a trend, and in some cases, the complex combinations of medications may counteract health.

Also adding to the high cost of healthcare is, in my opinion, a lack of access to preventive medicine. Massage therapy offers a healthful, low-cost alternative to pharmaceuticals now used to “reduce stress.” (See article on massage that follows.) Yet massage is not readily available in our healthcare system in many cases. Why is that?

Our healthcare system is ailing, and we need to fix it, which will also bring down costs.

It’s time to light a fire under the politicians to get them off their collective butts. I have plenty of fire in me to administer in appropriate amounts. Let this message be my first dose “medicine” for our elected officials.

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    Theraputic massage offers effective treatment for occupational injuries,  stress related conditions as well as back pain. This modality also is an alternative to expensive and invasive pharmaceutical painkillers, which do not necessarily .fix the problem, just mask it.
  
  Many health insurance plans do not cover theraputic massage, denying mainstream America an important tool in the arsenal of healthcare options.

     Why should massage therapy, which is widely used in other  countries as an important part of preventative medicine be denied to the majority of the population in this country?

     To add insult to injury, we pay the most  per person ( approx $6000 per person per year) on healthcare, yet are not even in the top ten rated countries  according to the World Health Organization.

    Are we really  getting our moneys worth, after paying all those insurance premiums?. We must broaden the discussion beyond insurance coverage to be able to actually improve the effectiveness of our overall system.

 Massage therapy should be incorporated into mainstream western medicine in order to both increase quality of healthcare, as well as to lower costs related to pharmaceutical dependency.
 
 

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