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The following are my cliff notes from Senator
Tom Daschle’s book, Critical (What We Can Do About the
Health-Care Crisis) with my focus on Prevention & Well Being :
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Better 'reformed health system' is aggressive in promoting prevention.
Still today our culture gives short shrift to prevention and wellness
programs that can be as effective and sometimes more effective than
acute care with high tech intervention.
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Better 'reformed health system' should place a greater emphasis on
treating chronic conditions. Chronic conditions are now the
leading cause of illness, disability and death in the US and nearly half
of the American people have one or more of them.
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Better 'reformed health system' has a strong 'Continuity of Care'.
Coordination of care is a rarity in medicine today with both physicians
and patients working primarily in isolation without complete information
critical to good communication between the doctor's office, family
understanding and financial support for positive results.
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Better 'reformed health system' has equal attention to mental health and
addiction medicine. 27% of the growth in health-care costs between
1987 and 2001 were connected to rising incidence of obesity.
Obesity is a form of addiction, not a nutrition and exercise deficiency.
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Better 'reformed health system' ties payment to performance instead of
basing payment on services rendered. And the best way to advance
prevention and wellness programs is to start with them and make them
first on the list for reaching both the 'core cause and cure. . .before
reaching for the quick fix, drug (addiction mentality).
Average health care costs per family is
approximately $12,106.00.
Another book for your consideration is Your Money or Your Life; Strong
Medicine for America's Health Care System, by David Cutler.
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