Should Alternative Medicine be covered by Medicare and Medicaid?
Should the government cover these types of treatments with public funds? Is Alternative Medicine covered in countries with socialized medicine?
Should the government cover these types of treatments with public funds? Is Alternative Medicine covered in countries with socialized medicine?
June 29th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Absolutely not. A treatment classified as alternative medicine, it either doesn’t stand up statistically to having no treatment at all, or no studies have been done to show how well it works. If the treatment worked and could be demonstrated to be beneficial, it would be part of medicine, not alternative medicine. The very term means it is an alternative to medical treatment, as in NOT medical treatment.
I don’t know about countries with socialized medicine. Its likely that there are some forms of alternative medicine being covered such as routine chiropractic treatment.
July 1st, 2009 at 6:07 am
Without delving into the minefield of whether the government should fund healthcare, and where socialization starts…
If the government is going to put out public money for health care, then they should only pay for treatments whose efficacy has been experimentally demonstrated. If someone wishes to seek unproven treatments or treatments that have been experimentally debunked, then it is not the public’s responsibility to indulge them.
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:24 am
Good question NG and something I had been thinking about.
No sort of health care fund should cover anything that isn’t a proved medical technique. Nor should they cover any sort of placebos.
I don’t think Medicare in Australia pays for that sort of stuff, url here:
Aussie health system is right up shite creek at the moment as it is without the need of any mumbo jumbo practitioners to help it along
July 5th, 2009 at 8:03 am
It’s already been said, but I’ll say it too. Our public funding of health care should only be for treatments that have shown efficacy in controlled clinical studies. Yes, sometimes a study is found to be flawed and the efficacy is not really there, and this excuse is sometimes used to justify throwing the baby out with the bathwater and embracing all forms of unproven alternative medicine woo-woo as legitimate. I think the bad logic in this excuse is apparent.
But (for example) if something like acupuncture is shown to be efficacious in studies at least equivalent to the Phase III clinical studies done for drug candidates, then sure, cover it. If not, don’t. Speaking of acupuncture, it’s interesting that a German headache study of 300 people revealed that random placement of needles is just as effective as the traditional acupuncture, and that both effects may be simply placebos:
‘The proportion of responders (reduction in headache days by at least 50%) was 51% in the acupuncture group, 53% in the sham acupuncture group, and 15% in the waiting list group.’ The authors concluded that this effect ‘may be due to nonspecific physiological effects of needling, to a powerful placebo effect, or to a combination of both.’ See link. There is as yet no proof that pricking with needles actually does anything beneficial to the human body and only suggested possibilities that it may be a way of temporarily releasing naturally produced pain killers.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I think Alternative Medicine is too broad of a scope. Herbalism? Yes, herbs are proven to help in many ways that prescription medication does and a lot of times without the side effects. For example, St. John’s Wart is great for depression, it is effective. So I do think that if someone wants to got to a herbalist then they should have that option.
As far as things like hands on healing…there aren’t enough regulations in place. It would be too easy for con-artists to take advantage of people for their insurance money.
Chiropractic treatments were heavily scoffed at by the medical community when it was in it’s beginning stages. I think certain forms of alternative medicine will follow that same path.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Actually, some of it IS. Acupuncture and Chiropractic are covered by my husband’s insurance. Medicare and medicaid are the lowest common denomonator so I’m not sure they include much at all. And in England I believe you can get alternatives through socialized medicine.
Acupuncture is very popular and not going anywhere. Some alternative treatments are more effective than others, but there has been at least one study at Harvard (joint study with MIT) concluding Acupuncture works beyond placebo. Much of the anti alternative medicine movement is now marginalized and they are loosing the battle to outlaw these things. However, unless something is proven over time and through studies like Acupuncture, I don’t think it should be funded with public money. But then again, I don’t think those poisonous vaccines with their aluminum and formaldahyde should be publicly funded EITHER.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:40 am
It depends on the alternative. Some perfectly effective treatments are still called alternative even though the medical community quietly use them. Chiropractic is one of them. I go to the CP first and have one that is good enough to tell me when I should go to the doc instead. Many alternative are called that because the medical community doesn’t get big bucks. I’ve saved thousands of dollars by going to my CP first. He can’t do everything but he has helped me a lot. And I don’t wait in the waiting room for very long. And when I leave his office I’m already feeling better. At like one tenth the cost of one Med. visit.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Medicare does cover chiropractic in limited capacity.
I think acupuncture should be covered as well, and it likely will be eventually as they try to cut more costs with prevention. That and chiropractic are the only alternative medicines I know of that have been proven enough to be publicly funded. More studies should be done on alternative medicines. Not covering herbs is silly in my opinion, but at least they are cheap. I too have saved a lot of money with the chiropractic work after my accident.
July 12th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Of course it shouldn’t.
Chiropractic is quackery. If you disagree I challenge you to look into the origins (esp. subluxation) and discover what chiropractic really is. It’s a belief that blockages in the spinal column prevent your vital life force from flowing through your head and into your body, thus causing illness. Only by unblocking can you cure the illness. I swear. Granted, not all chiropractors practice this straight chiropractic, but I think you’ll find the most effective chiropractors don’t practice chiropractic at all. They are actually doing something they aren’t licensed to do in the first place–physical therapy.
As far as acupuncture goes, you’ll find nothing outside of the self-sustaining alt med literature showing acupuncture having any long term effect. (Once again, read what it is acupuncture claims to do–correcting the flow of a mysterious life force.) And the short term effect can be attributed to the placebo effect. In other words, acupuncture is only effective for the treatment of *subjective* and self-reported, rather than *objective* and measurable symptoms. So it might temporarily ease joint pain, but it won’t get rid of arthritis.
As with chiropractic, acupuncture doesn’t do what it says it does and only works when it’s not really acupuncture. This is demonstrated in studies showing that sham acupuncture works exactly as well as real acupuncture. Quackwatch.com has a wealth of good information on chiropractic and acupuncture.
I would be very upset if my tax dollars went into the pockets of these quacks.
EDIT:
Kevin Trudeau has a long history of fraud, false advertising and deceptive marketing practices. He is a criminal huckster.
China employs traditional medicine not because it’s effective but because it’s inexpensive. Hardly a nation known for its concern for the welfare for its people, I think you’d find that those who base their medical understanding on science and knowledge rather than superstition do not employ traditional Chinese medicine.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:55 am
Medicare and Medicaid SHOULD DEFINITELY BE paying for any medical services. The doctors in both arenas have to be licensed in order to be able to practice medicine. Alternative Medicine is just as legitimate (if not more so) as so called ‘mainstream medicine.’ I personally would get the opinions of several medical practitioners. After drawing conclusions as to what is a good prognosis in my case, then I would go forward and seek doctors in the Alternative Medicine field. What God has devised, man needs to follow or be ultimately destroyed. I am glad that God is in the picture. Peace!
July 16th, 2009 at 4:00 am
In China, traditional medicine techniques are integrated with modern medicine techniques to provide an array of benefits to patients. Hospitals include both modern and traditional medicine wings, and the physicians utilize both types of services in their treatments. Herbalism, acupuncture, and therapeutic massage are all part of the health care system in that country.
In the UK, it is common for hospitals to employ numerous practitioners of therapeutic touch. These employees move from room to room assisting the bedridden or recovering patients by providing comfort, companionship, and attention when they need it most.
In both of these cases, the treatments are not considered to be alternative any more than nurses are considered to be extraneous in the US healthcare system. The definition of what is acceptable varies greatly by the culture and traditions of a region.
I’m not trying to argue for or against government funding, but I am adamant about the fact that it should be medical practitioners who decide what the best treatment is for a patient. Medical decisions should not be made by insurance companies, governments, or taxpayers. If a doctor feels that it is appropriate for a patient to be treated with therapeutic massage rather than taking an array of pills provided for 10 times the cost, the treatments should be covered by the healthcare providers. When we allow drug companies and insurance providers to determine which treatements are best for us, we are going to end up taking a lot of pills and getting only emergency medical coverage. Although this sort of treatment might help to insure profitability of an insurance company or drug company, it is not in the best interest of the patients.
So, I guess I would say that government health coverage should provide coverage for any treatments that are recommended and approved by a qualified health-care practitioner. That is, if your doctor recommends a treatment for your well being, your health care provider should pay for it. This is the best way to insure that the patients will get the best health care that is available to them.
BTW, if the only benefit from a treatment is a placeabo effect, but if that effect helps the patient to recover, shouldn’t that be considered a viable method of treatment? The point is to help the patients recover, right?
Thanks for the question!
July 19th, 2009 at 7:51 am
No it isn’t, which is why as an alternative therapist in the UK i can hardly afford to eat. It’s a case of free medicine versus medicine which the establishment spends large amounts of money to undermine. Like most alternative therapists, my income is far, far below the minimum wage, in my case about a twentieth of the minimum. Isn’t life fair?
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I say yes to the public funds because the studies that are done for prescription drugs have less success then a lot of alternative studies(you just don’t know or hear about it). Of-course the funding should have restrictions to prevent scams and such..maybe limit the funds to the medicine that had success in trials. Although, the funny thing is a lot of alternative medicine doesn’t need funding, in fact, some of it can be done at home at the same price as groceries. What should prolly take more precedence is the research and development aspect of it.
There in lies the problem. In fact, the complete opposite is going on. If alternative medicine is found to be successful in the US it is suppressed/debunked/etc etc. The pharmasuticle industry would rather not lose a ton of money nor all the money for surgery etc. There is little money to be made in alternative medicine and a lot of money for certain industries to lose. A lot of studies are falsified just to get certain (syptom treating) medicine approved. For example, it’s always studies show and never how many people were studied or who was studied.
So…. Research for alternative medicine should really be covered even though it has zero chance of happening. Not sure about other countries with the funding but I know they use it more then we do.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Alternative medicine is what has been defined by the mainstream allopathic medical community as such.
Different countries consider different medical practices as accepted mainstream practices. We can learn something by taking a serious look at how other countries approach health care, instead of putting blinders on because we assume we in the U.S. can do everything better.
Medicare wastes a lot of money because the high technology solution is often pushed by the health providers. For example, instead of properly cleaning out pressure sores and fighting associated infections early, they let the problem get out of hand and then get thousands of dollars a month for the rental of a special bed. There are a lot of examples like that.
If the patient were allowed to choose alternative treatments, there would be more competition and some serious abuses could be prevented.
July 25th, 2009 at 4:07 am
Having had to deal with the insurance and medical systems I will say that the mentality of the US system needs to be drastically overhauled.
I am insured under both the US system and the German system.
I was paralyzed due to a rare neurological disorder in 1992.
Due to narrow minded medical treatment that began in 1984, the treatment was lacking and the effects are still to be seen today.
In 1992 I went into a German hospital and the progress had advanced to a point that I was not expected to survive and if I did survive I would be either bed ridden or at a minimum be in need of an electric wheelchair. I became a Guinea Pig for some alternative treatments, most of which were covered by the German insurance but not by the US treatments.
Today I walk with braces on both legs or use a walker. I am self sufficient in all areas of life and drive a normal car that has no modifications. Had it not been for alternative treatments, I may not be alive today or at best be in a nursing care facility.
Often the alternative methods are much less expensive than that which is supported by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
I am very supportive of the socialized medical system. It allows for the doctor to focus more on the patient than the profit margin and financial support from the drug companies. By allowing the doctor to utilize alternative methods, aside from lowering the cost for my treatment, the quality of life for me is much better than if I had relied on my American insurance.
One problem with alternative methods that does arise is that the individual treatment must be adapted for the individual patient and there is some trial and error. This is also a factor with standard medical treatment but often either a patient responds to a limited choice of treatment or not. When not, they are hidden away in a nursing care facility where their needs are looked after. Having a mixture of standard and alternative treatments along with a lot of contact with others that have also experianced both, another observation that I have made is that the side effects of standard treatment are much more pronounced than those of alternative methods, some that are necessary to be treated as severely as the original problem. Under the German system not only the treatment is looked at but also the quality of life and ability to be self sufficiant. This in turn lowers other social costs. Not all treatments function for all patient, be it standard or alternative methods. As for me, I’ll take the alternative choice as a compliment to standard treatments, and the other way around.