Letha’s Asian Health Secrets

If I thought it would do any good I might complain that the proposed health care and insurance coverage proposal being debated by Congress ignores alternative choice of health care professionals and services. But I am used to being ignored or nearly ignored by the insurance establishment. Many of my clients and students have never had health insurance coverage. They prefer alternative health care. However, there is another more basic reason why the national health care plan falls short of our needs. It does not adequately pay attention to prevention. It  helps us to pay for disease. I agree with L. Randall Wray, Ph.D, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, when he writes: “Nations that adopt diets closer to ours begin to suffer similar afflictions: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, diverticulitis, malformed dental arches and tooth decay, varicose veins, ulcers, hemorrhoids, and cancer. Even universal health insurance is not going to lower the costs of such chronic afflictions that are largely due to the fact that we eat too much of the wrong kinds of food and get too little exercise. It makes more sense to attack the problem directly by increasing exercise, reducing caloric intake, and minimizing consumption of corporate food-like substances that make us sick, than to provide insurance so that those who suffer the consequences of our lifestyle can afford costly care. “