Dr. Lundberg makes excellent tactical suggestions and gives specific examples of costly procedures and practices, and how they should be handled differently.

However, Dr. Lundberg focuses this article on the power of the doctor/patient relationship.

I believe that there are still many ethical and professional American physicians and many intelligent American patients who are capable of, in an alliance of patients and physicians, doing "the right things." Their combined clout is being underestimated in the current debate on healthcare reform.

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An alliance of informed patients and physicians can widely apply recently learned comparative effectiveness science to big-ticket items, saving vast sums while improving quality of care.

What Dr. Lundberg fails to address here is the cost-savings and improved quality of care that could result from a greater focus on behavior management and lifestyle changes.

Many of the most costly disease states in the US (such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and colorectal cancers) could have their prevelance drastically reduced, as well as minimizing the number of costly procedures associated with complications of those disease states, if Americans simply took a better approach to preventive medicine -- which means eating right and exercising more. This is something many Americans are adverse towards, because they are coddled by allopathic medicine and taught to expect a "magic bullet" of a cure, in drug or surgical form, which will solve their problem.

Many problems, from cancer to depression, could be helped by this magic bullet: avoid processed foods, eat lots of fruits and veggies, eat only clean-sourced organic meats, and get some exercise everyday.

It's not rocket science. It's just not as sexy for the medical community or the media to talk about these things. We need to change that. The power of the physician/patient relationship CAN change that, so we should all focus on empowering that small change.

It's fine if healthcare if for profit. But, then the profits should be fed back into the system for rewarding practitioners, funding studies, and improving care.

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Bill Maher talks about how rehabilitating prisoners is bad for business, how news has become The Beverly Hillbillies, and how healthcare has turned into a Jiffy Lube.

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing?

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The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.

When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism?

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If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

What disturbs me most is when I hear people with diabetes say they didn't realize that there could be complications associated with the disease. While diabetes can be managed well in most cases, there are serious complications that can present themselves when someone doesn't work towards better blood sugar control.

The Newton Daily News had a good article examining diabetes myths. Understanding the myths that surround diabetes are one good way to raise awareness, so if you're interested, please check out the article.

Diabetes complications are not inevitable. The studies mentioned before — the UKPDS and DCCT — have shown that complication can be delayed and even prevented with good blood sugar control. As we teach in our Diabetes Self Management Education program here at Skiff, diabetes is a serious, common, costly but a controllable disease. There are many things people with diabetes can do to live a full life while preventing or delaying complications.

In meeting with several Republican governors today (that weren't on leave in Argentina) to discuss the national healthcare system.

He sent a message to the AMA by stating that patients would be able to choose their doctors under his system.

Via the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says Americans will still be able to choose their doctors under the health care changes he is seeking.

Via USNews & World Report:

President Obama's announcement of a $80 billion deal with the pharmaceutical industry to cut prescription drug costs received favorable media coverage from a wide range of sources, but was only briefly mentioned by one network, ABC. Some coverage, however, noting the fine print of the deal, is cast in somewhat negative terms.

Via Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.

Baby boomers -- the generation born between 1946 and 1964 -- had the most trouble and were the most likely to put off medical treatments or services, said researchers at Center for Healthcare Improvement, part of the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters.

Yesterday, the NEJM.org posted an article titled The Individual Mandate — An Affordable and Fair Approach to Achieving Universal Coverage by Linda J. Blumberg, Ph.D., and John Holahan, Ph.D.

It's a worthy read with insightful commentary on insurance pools, and how our present system makes it difficult for people with health problems to obtain and maintain insurance. Further, voluntary insurance lacks incentives for efficiently managing health care costs.

The piece then goes on to argue that if it was mandated that everyone must have health insurance coverage, adverse selection (currently conducted by health insurance companies) would be eliminated and by providing care who those who need it most, better care management would result that would reduce the sky-high costs associated with acute situations in chronic conditions that have been allowed to go on without adequate treatment.

Health insurers engage in many practices that make it difficult for people with health problems to obtain and maintain their coverage; they do so for the express purpose of protecting themselves from the potentially enormous financial consequences of adverse selection. Adverse selection entails the disproportionate enrollment in insurance plans of people with higher-than-average health risk. There is a natural tendency for such selection to occur, because people prefer to pay for coverage only when they think they will need health care services. Insurance pools cannot be stable over time, nor can insurers remain financially viable, if people enroll only when their costs are expected to be high. Consequently, insurers create, and regulators permit, structured barriers against such behavior, including such policies as exclusion periods for coverage of preexisting conditions, benefit riders that permanently exclude particular types of care, higher premium rates or cost-sharing requirements for people with health problems, and outright denials of coverage.