Thursday, June 25, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor: Shifting America from sick care to genuine wellness

By Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

Washington, DC — With the Senate health committee convening daily to craft a comprehensive health reform bill, the basic outline of this landmark legislation is now clear.

Yes, it will ensure access to affordable, quality care for every American. But, just as important, it will hold down health care costs by creating a sharp new emphasis on disease prevention and public health.

As the lead Senator in drafting the Prevention and Public Health section of the bill, I view this legislation as our opportunity to recreate America as a genuine wellness society – a society that is focused on prevention, good nutrition, fitness, and public health.

The fact is, we currently do not have a health care system in the United States; we have a sick care system. If you’re sick, you get care, whether through insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, community health centers, emergency rooms, or charity. The problem is that this is all about patching things up after people develop serious illnesses and chronic conditions.

We spend a staggering $2.3 trillion annually on health care – 16.5 percent of our GDP and far more than any other country spends on health care – yet the World Health Organization ranks U.S. health care only 37th among nations, on par with Serbia.

We spend twice as much per capita on health care as European countries, but we are twice as sick with chronic disease.

How can this be so? The problem is that we have systematically neglected wellness and disease prevention. Currently in the United States, 95 percent of every health care dollar is spent on treating illnesses and conditions after they occur. But we spend peanuts on prevention.

The good news in these dismal statistics is that, by reforming our system and focusing on fighting and preventing chronic disease, we have a huge opportunity. We can not only save hundreds of billions of dollars; we can also dramatically improve the health of the American people.

Consider this: Right now, some 75 percent of health care costs are accounted for by heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and obesity. What these five diseases and conditions have in common is that they are largely preventable and even reversible by changes in nutrition, physical activity, and lifestyle.

Listen to what Dr. Dean Ornish told our Senate health committee: “Studies have shown that changing lifestyle could prevent at least 90 percent of all heart disease. Thus, the disease that accounts for more premature deaths and costs Americans more than any other illness is almost completely preventable, and even reversible, simply by changing lifestyle.”

It’s not enough to talk about how to extend insurance coverage and how to pay for health care – as important as those things are. It makes no sense just to figure out a better way to pay the bills for a system that is dysfunctional, ineffective, and broken. We also have to change the health care system itself, beginning with a sharp new emphasis on prevention and public health.

We also have to realize that wellness and prevention must be truly comprehensive. It is not only about what goes on in a doctor’s office. It encompasses workplace wellness programs, community-wide wellness programs, building bike paths and walking trails, getting junk food out of our schools, making school breakfasts and lunches more nutritious, increasing the amount of physical activity our children get, and so much more.

I am heartened by the fact that the major players in this endeavor – Democrats and Republicans alike – all “get it” when it comes to prevention and public health. We all agree that it must be at the heart of reform legislation.

As President Obama said in his speech to Congress earlier this year: “[It is time] to make the largest investment ever in preventive care, because that's one of the best ways to keep our people healthy and our costs under control.”

No question, comprehensive health reform is an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking. But what makes me optimistic is that all the major groups are playing a constructive role, including those that opposed the 1993-94 heath reform effort. Everyone agrees that the current system is broken.

Winston Churchill famously said that “Americans always do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” Well, we’ve tried everything else, and it has led us to bad health and the brink of bankruptcy.

Comprehensive health reform legislation is our opportunity to change the paradigm. We are going to extend health insurance to every American. And we are going to give our citizens access to a 21st century health care system – one that is focused on helping us to live healthy, active, happy lives.

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COMMENT: All this talk of "health care reform" lately. Reform what? As Sen. Harkin notes, we do not have a health care system in this country. Instead we have the medical business, the model of which is "the treatment of diseased conditions via drugs and surgery." But Harkin does not go far enough...

We do not need "preventive care" or insurance for every American; we need a single payer national health care system that would include emergency death prevention and other emergency care, but the primary focus of which would be creating health, not treating or preventing disease.

As Gary Taubes documents in his book "Good Calories, Bad Calories", high intake of refined carbohydrate (mainly white flour, white sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup) is the cause of the "diseases of civilization", including obesity, diabetes (Type 2/adult onset), heart disease, and more.

Elections do not make a government legitimate; a government makes itself legitimate by protecting the people - ALL the people. (Those who oppose legitimate government identify themselves by decrying "protection-ism".) Will President Obama be able to overcome his tendency to be conciliatory, and make the government legitimate by protecting us against the pyschopaths who run food and pharmaceutical companies, who feel entitled to lie and to benefit from harming us? It would require a spine...

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Monday, June 22, 2009

Parents banned from taking pictures of their own children at sports day


Mrs Ethelston's Church of England Primary School, in Uplyme, Devon, prohibited photos and video filming, claiming it was due to changes in child protection and images legislation.

It is the first time the school has taken such measures.

Parents criticised the move and said they felt there was no legal reason why they cannot take photos for personal use.

Jane Souter, who has a son at the school and is chair of the Parents Teachers and Friends Association, said: "It is a shame but that is the way it is all going now, you are not allowed to do a lot of things because of rules and regulations.

"A lot of the parents think it is a great shame. There are people who have been there for many, many years and they are upset about it, although they do not blame the school.

"It is sad that you are not allowed to take pictures of your own children.

"It is all to do with the pictures getting into the wrong hands and the school has to follow its own code of conduct. "I am sure the school do not like it just as much as we do."

Another parent, who did not want to be named, said: "Parents want to record achievements through their child's life and not to be made to feel that they are all criminals and are going to upload dodgy photos to some porn site."

They added that many parents were upset that they could no longer take photos and fear photography will be banned at every school event.

They said: "Speaking to many parents, they were extremely annoyed and exasperated and no one really knew why they couldn't take photos of their children as they done so in the past.

"Many seemed just resigned that it was a sign of the times."

They added: "Please, please, clear this ridiculous nanny state affair up."

A spokesman for the Devon local education authority said: "It's a decision which individual head teachers come to, usually with consultation with governors."

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COMMENT: Protecting humans from the inhuman does not require requiring the humans to be inhuman.

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