As our nation waits on pins and needles for our elected officials to craft a “health-insurance plan for-everyone,” those who are excited by this proposition need to understand that it will not be free. We will all directly and indirectly pay for it. You can be sure of that. And the scary thing is, we are looking to the federal government to craft this utopian health insurance plan when their track record in the insurance business is downright lousy. Can you say Medicare?
I’m concerned that in our over-exuberance to grant everyone health insurance, if we are not careful, we might unknowingly strip ourselves from the very thing we need: health care.
Take, for example, in the late 1990s when Blue Cross of Northern California pitched their health plan to medicare eligible seniors. They said their plan had “chiropractic services.” In fact, what it had was physical therapists rendering spinal manipulations in lieu of chiropractors. Talk about misleading.
We need to be mindful of what we are signing up for. Are we truly going to get the health care we need and want, or are we going to be subjected to misleading promises and unacceptable cost-cutting measures all in the name of insuring everyone?
If we are going to craft a plan that insures everyone, it is imperative that we turn to treatments that are effective both in terms of cost and actually working.
In the last half of 2009 three studies have surfaced regarding chiropractic that should give anyone drafting a health care reform proposal pause.
Reporting after one year, a Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield physical medicine pilot study found that patients who received chiropractic and other physical medicine procedures were less likely to have surgery and had lower overall total health care costs when compared to similar patients that did not receive such services.
An assistant professor of Harvard Medical School, along with a chief physician at Mercer Health and Benefits asked this question: “Does the availability of chiropractic care improve the value of health benefit plans?”
Their answer: “When considering effectiveness and cost together, chiropractic physician care for low back and neck pain is highly cost-effective, represents a good value in comparison to medical physician care and … is likely to drive improved cost-effectiveness of U.S. care.” Would you believe that their findings did not include medication expenses?
Finally, Milliman USA recently released a “previously confidential report” that looked at the financial impact chiropractic care would have on the medical costs for patients with common spinal diagnoses. Amassing more than 2.5 million member months of claims data, they found that those seeking chiropractic care had “materially lower health care costs than those who did not … 10 to 23 percent lower costs … .”
Extrapolating this data to a member pool of one million, they projected that if 6 percent of this population shared a common spinal diagnosis and half underwent chiropractic care, a savings of $1.2 million per month would be realized. That’s more $14 million per year.
So, as our elected leaders scramble to come up with a plan, let them hear your voice. Insist on care that will deliver for your hard-earned dollar.
Thomas R. Lamar is a chiropractor at Anchor Chiropractic in Kingston’s Health Services Center. He can be reached at (360) 297-8111.
