Rakesh Sethi, BS, CAHP

Wellness Speaker/ Author/ 

Ayurvedic Practitioner

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Can Health Care Reform and Preventive Care Fix our System?

Posted on: December 6th, 2010 by Rakesh Sethi 14 Comments

Our health care system is broken, probably an understatement. The cost we pay under this broken system is with both our health and our wallet. Are we getting our money’s worth? Perhaps yes, in disease management but not in preventive care and health management.  With health care reform and preventive care included in our health plans, we can move towards managing health.

However, we live with a belief that health care system is responsible for managing our health.  I believe this fundamental belief has to change.

In order for health care reform and preventive care to work, our health attitudes must shift to take on personal responsibility of managing our own health just as we manage our financial health. How we approach our health has to change?

Take the following approach:

  1. Take personal responsibility- you are your first health coach.
  2. Practice preventive care with right diet & life style suitable for your unique mind-body.
  3. If you are healthy you don’t need medicine.  However to stay healthy, if you choose NOT to change your unhealthy diet and life style then you have NO use for medicine.
  4. Don’t make the problem worse by waiting and try to find a magic pill.  There is none.  Preventive care is the magic pill.

Unless we change our Health Attitudes, any health care reform changes we make to the health care system in United States will not work.  Let me explain:

Let us suppose we have the following health care options under the health care insurance plans:

  1. Alternative medicine- natural preventive health care, for example Ayurveda, Acupuncture, Yoga, Meditation etc.
  2. Integrative approach- alternative combined with current medical model.
  3. Conventional medicine- current medical model

Without changing our health attitudes, we will continue to live as we live today and after becoming sick expect the medical system to “fix” us.  This means we will continue to use the last option#3.  Perhaps it is too late to use preventive care options 1 or 2.  Note the costs are significantly less when we use options 1 & 2.

So it seems, even if we offer preventive care options under health insurance, people will not use it till we educate them to shift their health attitudes.  So we need to do both:  offer all 3 options under the health insurance plans and also change our health attitudes.

Let us also clarify on what is true preventive care?

health care reform and preventive careMost of us think that having regular physicals, mammograms, & other check-ups is a preventive care.  THIS IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG. These are just screening tools to see, if your preventive care practice is working or not. Preventive care is a step before this step.

Preventive care is selecting right foods, life style, exercising according to your unique mind-body constitution. We are all unique and one size does not fit all. So we must discover what foods & type of life style is more suitable for us. If we think of food as medicine, we perhaps will not need any other medicine.

Our current system catches people as they are just about to fall off a cliff and cost is just too high to “save” people at this juncture. 

Place preventive care (included under health insurance) at the front end and we will have fewer people falling off the cliff.  Savings will be tremendous to our medical system. It is our, for profit, health care system that will realize tremendous economic benefits. But I do not see them making big strides in this direction. Well, it is my health and I not going to wait for them while I pay with my health. I need to make my own health care reform by shifting my health attitudes today.  This shift in personal health attitudes is an absolutely necessary step along with health care reform and preventive care to fix health care system in United States.

You can be an instrument of change. Share this article with others. This is our chance to change how we approach our health with combining true health care reform and preventive care.  Contact me with your questions & feedback.

Be Well!

Rakesh Sethi

PS:  First step in your health care reform and preventive care is to start Eating Right Foods as per your unique Mind-Body constitution.  Learn this know-how in FREE “simple secrets to good health with right eating” mini course.

What Do You Think?  Feel Free to Speak Your Mind

Share your comments, thoughts and suggestions below. I appreciate your time & will take the time to read every single one!

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14 Responses

  1. Pankaj says:

    I love the way you think!

  2. Kel-enpol says:

    Hello. excellent job. I did not imagine this. This is a impressive story. Thanks!

  3. Tia Both says:

    Awsome website! I am loving it!! Will come back again. I am taking your feeds also

  4. Thank you Dr.Rakesh for this excellent Article with very very important informations about preventive health, and the Health Care Reform. Wonderful!

  5. Anil Passi says:

    Rakesh thanks for such nice information
    Regards
    Pape

  6. Journal du Jardin says:

    I would like to thank you pretty much because that’s exactly the informations I was looking for.

  7. Priscila Harwell says:

    Fairly fantastic write-up. As i only just came on your current blog site and even favored expressing which i need and really liked studying your web site blogposts. Anyways I am going to end up following your blog.

  8. Salvatore Hodde says:

    I love the efforts you have put in this, thankyou for all the great posts .

  9. Lia says:

    So refreshing to read this article. It is nice to know that others see the real problems of the healthcare system and that believe that we need to take our own health into our own hands, not waiting for the government to save us. Thank you for all of your posts and articles, you do a great job in putting out a perspective that not others have the courage to show.

  10. Rhonda says:

    Oh my goodness, you hit the nail right on the head. People do have preventative care confused with health care in general. Most have no idea that they are the “preventative” part of their healthcare.

    • Rakesh Sethi says:

      Thank you Rhonda! Help me spread this awareness. Diagnostic checks are only there to check if your prevention practice is working. Diagnostic checks are NOT preventive care.

  11. Source says:

    Cool article! I will definately bookmark it for future reference.
    Thanks alot : )!

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