News
Because California's credit card is maxed out, it is inevitable that we find ways of cutting spending without sacrificing vital programs and encouraging business growth at the same time.
Reforming health care can provide California with a painless way of reducing the deficit and helping to balance the budget. I co-authored AB1478 (Ammiano) with Dr. John McDougall and Tom Ammiano was gracious enough to sponsor it.
It is a two-year bill, now parked in the B&P committee until the 2010 term. This bill could potentially save Californians billions of dollars, including billions now being spent by Medi-Cal on unnecessary bypass surgeries and angioplasties, and in managing diabetes and its life-threatening complications.
AB1478 calls for freedom in medical choice. It requires physicians in non-emergency heart disease and diabetic cases to give their patients the option of choosing lifestyle and nutritional treatments instead of the customary surgery and medications for the life of the patient.
What difference would this make to California's bottom line?
Consider that the cost of heart disease in California in 2009 is estimated to be $48.36 billion with Medi-Cal's share being $8.22 billion, with private insurance, patient-out-of-pocket and Medicare picking up the balance. For heart disease, bypass surgery (at $40,000 to $100,000 per procedure), and angioplasty (at $30,000 to $40,000 each procedure), picks up the lion's share of these expenses.
The figures for diabetes is just as staggering: Estimated at $36.01 billion for 2009, with Medi-Cal's share being $6.12 billion. For both diseases costs grow at eight percent annually.
With diabetes, it is not just the lifetime cost of drugs or insulin that is the problem, but managing the complications during long-term treatment: Heart disease, stroke, obesity, neuropathy with amputations, retinopathy with blindness, kidney failure with dialysis and disability payments.
In contrast, the expense of intensive lifestyle and nutritional treatments is usually a one-time insignificant cost, with the lifelong reversal of heart disease and diabetes — so long as the patient continues a healthy lifestyle and diet.
The famous Dean Ornish heart disease reversal program costs $7,500 and Weimar Institute runs a three week program for about $5,000. The Coronary Health Improvement Program (CHIP), run by Dr. Hans Diehl, has over 50,000 graduates who
avoided surgery and drug side effects.
The medical and scientific basis for choosing intensive lifestyle and nutritional therapy is abundant, even as the evidence exposes the failures of bypass surgery, angioplasty and the tight control of blood sugar in diabetics.
Three major studies, the Veterans Administration Cooperative Study, the Coronary Artery Surgery Study and the European Coronary Artery Study, all show that, except for left-ventricle damage, bypass surgery did not prolong the life, decrease death rates, or prevent future heart attacks. Leading physicians say that 80 to 85 percent of bypass surgeries are unnecessary.
Angioplasties fare no better. The occluded Artery Trial and the COURAGE Trial, both reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, revealed that angioplasty did not reduce the occurrence of repeat heart attacks or heart failure. In fact, there was an increase in repeat heart attacks among patients receiving stents.
By contrast, a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed a healthy diet and lifestyle could cause a 91 percent mean reduction in frequency of chest pain episodes in three weeks. Chest pain (angina) is the primary legitimate reason for recommending surgery.
The next level of benefit from dietary therapy was established when a healthy diet was found to reverse the underlying disease (atherosclerosis) in 82 percent of patients in one year. AB1478 can potentially save Californians $5 billion in unperformed bypass surgeries (close to a billion in Medi-Cal savings), and $11 billion in unperformed angioplasties (1.87 billion to $2 billion in Medi-Cal savings).
Medications for type-2 diabetes are prescribed aggressively with the unfounded belief that better control of blood sugar will result in better long-term outcomes for the patient. But all six major studies in the last 13 years have shown otherwise. In 2008 three landmark studies, ACCORD, ADVANCE and VADT published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed that aggressive treatment does more harm than good.
Diabetics experience more weight gain, higher cholesterol, triglycerides and blood
pressure; and more heart disease, stroke and death with aggressive treatment compared to less treatment.
Again, by contrast, a study published in Diabetes Care in 2006 found that a low-fat, plant based diet improved the health of people with type-2 diabetes even more that the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Diet did. Twice as many of the plant-food group were able to reduce their medications compared to the ADA Diet group.
This should be of particular interest to Hispanics, blacks and American Indians whose incidence of diabetes is twice that of non-Hispanic whites.
By encouraging patients to adopt the prevention and cure model of health care, AB1478 can potentially save Californians and Medi-Cal, billions of dollars in diabetic care.
Since the Western diet is agreed by all to be the cause of this epidemic in heart disease and diabetes, should not diet be the first place to look for prevention and the cure? Is this not common sense, seeing that drugs and surgery never cure disease nor restore health, but only manage our symptoms at a price? A very high price indeed. AB1478 makes common sense.
James Henderson is an attorney and author of “Indicted! The People versus the Medical and Drug Cartel.” He has law offices in Grass Valley and Roseville.
Reforming health care can provide California with a painless way of reducing the deficit and helping to balance the budget. I co-authored AB1478 (Ammiano) with Dr. John McDougall and Tom Ammiano was gracious enough to sponsor it.
It is a two-year bill, now parked in the B&P committee until the 2010 term. This bill could potentially save Californians billions of dollars, including billions now being spent by Medi-Cal on unnecessary bypass surgeries and angioplasties, and in managing diabetes and its life-threatening complications.
AB1478 calls for freedom in medical choice. It requires physicians in non-emergency heart disease and diabetic cases to give their patients the option of choosing lifestyle and nutritional treatments instead of the customary surgery and medications for the life of the patient.
What difference would this make to California's bottom line?
Consider that the cost of heart disease in California in 2009 is estimated to be $48.36 billion with Medi-Cal's share being $8.22 billion, with private insurance, patient-out-of-pocket and Medicare picking up the balance. For heart disease, bypass surgery (at $40,000 to $100,000 per procedure), and angioplasty (at $30,000 to $40,000 each procedure), picks up the lion's share of these expenses.
The figures for diabetes is just as staggering: Estimated at $36.01 billion for 2009, with Medi-Cal's share being $6.12 billion. For both diseases costs grow at eight percent annually.
With diabetes, it is not just the lifetime cost of drugs or insulin that is the problem, but managing the complications during long-term treatment: Heart disease, stroke, obesity, neuropathy with amputations, retinopathy with blindness, kidney failure with dialysis and disability payments.
In contrast, the expense of intensive lifestyle and nutritional treatments is usually a one-time insignificant cost, with the lifelong reversal of heart disease and diabetes — so long as the patient continues a healthy lifestyle and diet.
The famous Dean Ornish heart disease reversal program costs $7,500 and Weimar Institute runs a three week program for about $5,000. The Coronary Health Improvement Program (CHIP), run by Dr. Hans Diehl, has over 50,000 graduates who
avoided surgery and drug side effects.
The medical and scientific basis for choosing intensive lifestyle and nutritional therapy is abundant, even as the evidence exposes the failures of bypass surgery, angioplasty and the tight control of blood sugar in diabetics.
Three major studies, the Veterans Administration Cooperative Study, the Coronary Artery Surgery Study and the European Coronary Artery Study, all show that, except for left-ventricle damage, bypass surgery did not prolong the life, decrease death rates, or prevent future heart attacks. Leading physicians say that 80 to 85 percent of bypass surgeries are unnecessary.
Angioplasties fare no better. The occluded Artery Trial and the COURAGE Trial, both reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, revealed that angioplasty did not reduce the occurrence of repeat heart attacks or heart failure. In fact, there was an increase in repeat heart attacks among patients receiving stents.
By contrast, a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed a healthy diet and lifestyle could cause a 91 percent mean reduction in frequency of chest pain episodes in three weeks. Chest pain (angina) is the primary legitimate reason for recommending surgery.
The next level of benefit from dietary therapy was established when a healthy diet was found to reverse the underlying disease (atherosclerosis) in 82 percent of patients in one year. AB1478 can potentially save Californians $5 billion in unperformed bypass surgeries (close to a billion in Medi-Cal savings), and $11 billion in unperformed angioplasties (1.87 billion to $2 billion in Medi-Cal savings).
Medications for type-2 diabetes are prescribed aggressively with the unfounded belief that better control of blood sugar will result in better long-term outcomes for the patient. But all six major studies in the last 13 years have shown otherwise. In 2008 three landmark studies, ACCORD, ADVANCE and VADT published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed that aggressive treatment does more harm than good.
Diabetics experience more weight gain, higher cholesterol, triglycerides and blood
pressure; and more heart disease, stroke and death with aggressive treatment compared to less treatment.
Again, by contrast, a study published in Diabetes Care in 2006 found that a low-fat, plant based diet improved the health of people with type-2 diabetes even more that the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Diet did. Twice as many of the plant-food group were able to reduce their medications compared to the ADA Diet group.
This should be of particular interest to Hispanics, blacks and American Indians whose incidence of diabetes is twice that of non-Hispanic whites.
By encouraging patients to adopt the prevention and cure model of health care, AB1478 can potentially save Californians and Medi-Cal, billions of dollars in diabetic care.
Since the Western diet is agreed by all to be the cause of this epidemic in heart disease and diabetes, should not diet be the first place to look for prevention and the cure? Is this not common sense, seeing that drugs and surgery never cure disease nor restore health, but only manage our symptoms at a price? A very high price indeed. AB1478 makes common sense.
James Henderson is an attorney and author of “Indicted! The People versus the Medical and Drug Cartel.” He has law offices in Grass Valley and Roseville.
