Daschle on Health-Care: We Have a Sickness System

Presidential elect Barack Obama announced earlier this week that former Senator Tom Daschle would be his Health and Human Services Director and he would also be heading a new White House office on health-care reform, making this a priority in the new administration, since health care is such a major part of the US economy and it is the single leading cause for personal bankruptcy.

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

(photo: Tom Daschle in August of 2008 – credit: talkradionews) In a press conference on Thursday, December 11, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced that he had selected former Senator Tom Daschle to lead the US Health and Human Services Department as well as a new White House office intended to reform health care.

Later that day I was listening to California’s public radio 89.3 KPCC and one of my favorite radio personalities Pat Morrison speaking on Obama’s selection of Tom Daschle for his role as Health and Human Services Director. During her audio program Pat mentioned that health-care reform has plagued almost every president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and that Barack Obama had signaled that it was going to be a significant part of his administration.

Obama nominated former Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, former senator from South Dakota, to be the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, and also head of a new White House office on health-care reform. Pat mentioned that this comes at a time when the economy is in bad shape but President-elect Obama said that because health care is part of the problem it has to be part of the solution.

An audio clip from Obama speech is transcribed as follows: It’s not something that we can sort of put off because we’re in an emergency, this is part of the emergency. And what we want to do is make sure that our strategy reflects that truth.

Pat Morrison had interviewed Tom Daschle in March of 2008 where he was talking about how our priorities are upended in health-care as it’s delivered in the United States. Had I not been told these were the words of Tom Daschle I would have easily believed they were taken directly from a talk given in 1997 by Chiropractor Ian Grassam.

I transcribed Tom Daschle’s words from the Pat Morrison interview and here’s what he had to say.

We don’t have a health system we have a sickness system. All health care in any society is like a pyramid Pat. At the base of the pyramid you have prevention and wellness and you work your way up until the money runs out, at the top of the pyramid, with the most sophisticated and technical care. Every society starts at the beginning and goes up, we start at the top and go down. We start with the most sophisticated care and we run out of money also. We never get to wellness and prevention. 3% of that $2.3 trillion today is spent on wellness, and that’s where a big part of the problem lies. We don’t keep people healthy. We wait until they get sick and try to make them well.

I believe Dr. Grassam said it best when he said people suffer from a life deficiency syndrome brought to you by Madison Avenue and the drug industry.

I can tell you this, with recent news that Americans are choosing more alternatives, and a changing government structure that may actually consider wellness as important to human health, we are in for an interesting shift during the next four years.

planetc1.com-news @ 9:23 pm | Article ID: 1229145821