Our local health care meeting was tonight, and Doc was there to make a case for a different kind of health care--one that is caring and centered on improving and maintaining quality of life. Her three big points were as follows:

1. Insurance companies are interested in their bottom lines. Period. They aren't interested in keeping health care costs down because that would cut into their profit margin.

2. Doctors should be trained to and be allowed to see patients as individuals, not as "deviations from a norm". For example, patients can have a "normal" thyroid test yet still exhibit the classic symptoms of hypothryroidism (loss of hair, always feeling cold, etc.). Common sense and even some clinical studies have shown it makes sense to put the patient on thyroid medicine for a limited time to see if the symptoms disappear--yet insurance companies won't pay if you do because the test was "normal". When a doctor treats a patient as an individual, they must take more time with them. Yet some HMOs allow 6-10 minutes per patient visit.

3. Preventive care doesn't mean mammograms, tests for lipids, etc--these are detection measures. Prevention means having patients live a healthy lifestyle--a good diet, some supplements, and exercise. There was a clinical study done over 20 years ago where the lives of 2 groups were looked at over 17 years. The control group just lived their lives. The other group was given a generalized basic "healthy diet", one multi-vitamin a day, and a simple exercise program. At the end of the trial, it was found that the experimental group maintained their health for a longer time span than the control group. Interestingly enough, lifespan itself didn't change--people in both groups tended to die in their 80s. But with the experimental group, they kept their health up until about 9 months before their deaths, where the control group suffered serious health issues long before that. Prevention--good diet, some supplementation, and exercise--meant that the healthy life lasted until almost the end of life.

Thought these were very good points and wanted to share them with more than the handful of folks who showed up at our meeting.