Dear Humana,(and other Health Insurers), Scott & White( and other Health Care providers), & Members of the Senate & House, and (what the heck) President Obama, and you too readers,
I went to the doctor recently and asked to have my vitamin D level and also my homocysteine level checked. Both of these blood studies have shown to begood early indicators of numerous future health problems. I was told by the Scott & White physician that, "We don't do those tests". When I asked, "Why not?" since information abounds on these important health markers, I was told that insurance doesn't pay for them.
I'm Willing to Pay
Because I and so many other voices in the health community think these are important tests to have yearly, I said I was willing to pay out-of-pocket for them. To my astonishment I was flatly told that they didn't do them. And besides, she said, there is nothing you can do about elevated homocysteine anyway.
Excuse Me?!
It may be true that there is no drug that the pharmaceutical companies make that will help lower homocysteine (yet), but it is not true that there is nothing you can do about these elevations. ( B-Vits and TMG, thank you, very much). I would bet money that when the pharmaceutical industry finally comes up with a drug that lowers homocysteine, then the tests will be paid for by the health insurance.
My husband assures me that there is no connection between the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry, but it does leave me wondering why does it seem that the insurance industry has been so slow to get on the prevention bandwagon. One would think they would have their actuaries figuring out the numbers and implementing programs right and left to keep their payouts as low as possible.
Back to the Tests
As it turned out, the vitamin D test is available at my health care facility, but only if you showed cause. My mother's osteoporosis was a good enough reason, but really, Doctor, if you keep up with the literature-even your own medical literature, we should all be having our D levels checked. But then we are back with the problem of insurance not paying for the test.
The doctor was obviously annoyed with me for daring to have health information (that she did not) and querying her about it. God forbid-- an informed patient! That's a topic for another day!
Insuring Your Health?
The truth is: I shouldn't have to pay out of pocket for these tests. Nobody should. Health insurance and medical care should be helping us to stay healthy, but it rarely does. It should be required to stay up to date with scientific advancements and incorporate these into prevention programs because it is the right thing to do, but if that doesn't appeal to the types that run the government or business then let's just say it is good business to keep your clients healthy. It's good for the bottom line when you can spend a relatively small amount on a test that may help you not have to pay out enormous sums for cancer care or heart disease, or diabetes, or osteoporosis.
These two tests for homocysteine and vitamin D levels are now thought by many to be far more important than cholesterol & keeping the levels healthy are relatively inexpensive ways to help many of us stay healthy.
Most of my family member's health issues are handled in- house. Nursing care, including allopathic and complementary health, which I provide, is generally what's needed though when a medical opinion is needed my husband is available. We start out with natural health and move up the scale to allopathic health care, if required, but ultimately go to the doctor's office a lot less than most people. We pay a lot for insurance, and thank, God, rarely use it. We also take a lot of supplements, eat right and exercise (some) which is why we are generally healthy. So one would think that my insurer and my health care facility could pay for, or at the very least, make available the tests that have shown to be very important.
Cholesterol is So Yesterday
Cholesterol levels (which are generally paid for), while still informative, do not give the whole picture. As more is learned about the interactions of the body, healing systems, & newer technologies are made available, the markers for health & the tests to access those makers should and will change over time.
That time is now!
How long do we have to wait for change to occur?
High homocysteine is now associated with heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes. It is thought by an increasing number of health care providers as being more important than high cholesterol. By the way, homocysteine as an important marker for health, has been known for over 50 years. Unfortunately, the medical profession as a whole and the insurance industry has bought the pharmaceutical line that "cholesterol is the big bug-a-boo", even when science has shown that it isn't.
Damn the Studies, Full Statins Ahead!
That is the problem when you have so much invested in one test and the drugs to treat it. Cholesterol & statins go together like popcorn and butter(or margarine-- which took just 40 years for us to learn its bad news.) When you eat a whole bowlful, unfortunately, you have no room for anything else.
Plus, it's hard to admit when you are wrong.
Ignore that Man Behind the Curtain!
So when knew information rounds out the "cholesterol picture" of what is really damaging your blood vessels ( inflammation from sugar and other carbs, food allergies, sensitivities, environmental toxicities, etc) and the emphasis and understanding of the role of cholesterol changes(It's your body's band aid-among other things- and the band aid becomes a problem itself, eventually, but is not the initial problem) What can you do?
Ignore it: plain and simple. That, and double your efforts to sell as much of your statin drugs and cholesterol tests to an uninformed public and medical community, hopefully before the word gets out and sales tank. It's easy when you have the long arms of public influence as your back up. You get Madison Avenue to blitzkrieg the airways about "your high cholesterol and its health risk". You get the acceptable limits of cholesterol lowered by showing studies produced by your own sleazy, sell-out scientists (that no one else can duplicate). Then you shamelessly spoon-feed it to overworked, drug-biased educated doctors (that your industry helped to create) and put them on the front lines to dole out your mantra and prescriptions . And in adding insult to injury, turn out a few commercials thick in folksy schmaltz and short on veracity.
The pharmaceutical industry has so much invested in these cholesterol lowering drugs thattheir vested interest is in direct conflict with our using the latest science to stay healthy. And this is just one drug of the industry's many thousands of drugs. Add it all up and their vested interest is often at odds with the health of our our medical system. Can our health afford this?Can the health of our medical industry afford this ? Can Medicare? Can our economy?
But, Back to Simple, Cheap Vitamin D
Low Vitamin D levels are also risk factors for many types of cancer, heart disease, osteopenia, osteomalacia, osteoporosis, increased incidence of flu, increased insulin resistance, increased leptin resistance, increased incidence of obesity -- all of which increase your risk for diabetes, and probably a whole slough of things that they haven't discovered yet, but will shortly. Oh, and let's not for- get- increased risk of MS (multiple sclerosis.)
But really! Isn't that enough?
Cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, & diabetes. These are all big ticket items. Wouldn't you think that medical organizations, health insurance companies, & law makers would be falling all over themselves figuring out how to incorporate these tests/treatments(natural included) for these markers into cost effective, preventative medical care in
An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure
But I have heard nothing in regards to true prevention as a way to bring down medical costs. The old adage is still true, and is even more important today with the economy being in the ditch and billion and billions of dollars of taxpayer money being tossed willie-nillie to companies who have proved they don't deserve it.
They Dumped Tea in the Harbor for Less!
Is it too much to ask that my health insurer & yours pay for 2 small tests to see if we have the right levels of vitamin D and low levels of homocystiene to do what we can to ward off illnesses? I am willing to learn. I am willing to make the changes necessary. I am willing to pay for the supplements. I am certain many of you are too. So why will my insurer not pay for the test?
And why does my medical group not make the tests readily available to all?
And why do neither educate the public? And why don't they know and incorporate these advances?
Side Bar:
One Expensive Rat Hole
I voted for you, Mr. President, but please, do not go on a rant about how we will "find a cure for cancer". We have already poured too much money down that rat hole while ignoring the obvious:prevention. Prevention, true prevention, not early detection, which is something very different (please- get informed) includes how we take care of our bodies,(including checking our vitamin D levels and homocysteine levels- until something better comes along) But even more important is how we take care of our environment. Our dirty environment plays and even bigger role in our nationally declining health. Just take a look at some pollution emission maps that graph illness distribution over at your own EPA. The evidence is clear. We should be playing a strong defense because the environment has such a strong offense!( It's offensive!) But instead we are shuttling players to drug dens and knife fights and threatening the referee, then we wonder why we are losing the game or just lying about it.
Environmental clean-up, and enforcement of current regulations, a few more regulations for polluters, and more money spent on researching the effects of the synergistic effects of minute quantities of chemicals will do far more and cost less than another "war on cancer."
Too much carbon dioxide may kill us quicker than heavy metals and other pollutants, but we will be just as dead a little later.
It would be great if attacking global warming would also clean up that in the environment which is destroying our health, but assuming that that is what will happen by pursuing just a global warming agenda would be an assumption of facts not in evidence, and probably a great missed opportunity. It's always cheaper to do it right the first time around. Killing two birds with one stone will take additional thought and research.
Okay, Side Bar Over
Ethics-Do they still exist? Or are they just for the little guy?
Wouldn't you think that by rectifying "off" blood levels the insurance industry could decrease their payouts because patients wouldn't be getting as sick, instead of decreasing their payouts because they hope you are too sick to go through the miserable process of fighting with them? ( Oh, yes, this does happen!) Wouldn't you think they might want to increase their profit margin in this highly ethical way? Or are ethics another vital element in societal health that is in gross deficiency, not just resulting in monumental bailouts, but behind unnecessary rates of illness and death?
President Obama, are you listening? Senators? Reps? Health Insurers? Medical Groups? There are several easy inexpensive fixes for some of our most costly health woes.
But you won't see them until you take off your pharma-colored glasses.
Barb Kaiser RN, BSN, Holistic Health Consultant