There is a huge, monumental 'agency problem' in the US healthcare system. Basically, stakeholders want people to be unhealthy because more money can be extracted down the chain, from insurance premiums that are justifiably high because everyone is unhealthy already, to prescriptions and homecare. A large healthcare expenditure (because either people are too sick or the system is inefficient) on the books adds to GDP, which creates conditions for incompatible incentives.

I like your suggestions. There are many ideas for fixing healthcare, though large structural changes are difficult with shrinking budgets and lack of political capital to enact change.

Body by Science - a book about general health fitness which appears to have a lot of research put into it. The videos on youtube give a good overview: "youtube.com/watch?v=y-ufSYBcZa0"

http://www.earthclinic.com/ - a good resource for researching natural
remedies. Since in many cases controlled studies have not been conducted
for most things the reviews on the site give a small scale sample of
the effectiveness of treatments.

The more weird stuff they put in food the more heart disease and cancer.  At the same time people are getting less healthy, medical costs go up because of a cultural shift to make as much money as possible.  They can make enough money to pay all the doctors and pay for equipment if they charge $800 for an MRI but instead they charge $5000 because all of the executives have to afford lifestyles of the rich.  Also look at a drug progesterone that was available for $10 until a drug company got a monopoly, they raised the price to $1500 because they can.  During all the talk of healthcare reform this point was never brought up by republicans or democrats, so actual reform is hopeless.

@mjn, I would be careful with foxglove.

I also lack professional training, though I have studied non-traditional edible and poisonous plants, so I am wary of using anything that will kill me as a medicine.  I have personally concluded that a very diverse diet that is light in grains and meats is pretty solid.

Lookup Aubrey degray.  Being and staying young is not nearly as far out of our grasp as we think. 

If you want to cure heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and what costs society >90% of what we spend on health care all in one go, cure aging.

Bizarrely, some people - indeed most people- don't understand this, and many even *object* to the idea of curing this devastating thing.

Cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and most (but not all) of the symptoms of aging (frailty, loss of bone mass and muscle mass, macular degeneration, cognitive decline etc.) are preventable using the knowledge we already have.

Prevention is a lot cheaper than cure. Life weights. Run. Take supplements judiciously. Eat loads of vegetables. Eat mushrooms. Laugh. Meditate. Learn. Not only does it make you feel terrific, you save yourself tens of thousands in healthcare.

Oh, sweet. :) I'm all about herbalism, and I've been troubled by the medical establishment for a while. There are two main avenues to affordable healthcare, as I see it: local plant medicine, and local general practice diagnostics with specialists in major cities. Over 95% of the pharma industry compounds are plant derivatives. There's no need to guess, if you simply look at what they were extracting, from which plant. Use solubility separation, distillation, and the like, to extract the compound you want. (The extraction of essential oils and mineral salts into alcoholic solvent was the ancient practice of spagyrics, a branch of alchemy.) Medicinal plants are also some of the highest value outputs you can get. Invest equivalent energy and materials making an iPhone as you do in a crop of medicinal herbs, and the herbs will sell for more. That means, a seed is better at producing value than our best modern factories. Providing medicines for an OSE-style 200-person village would only require a tiny plot of herbs, and not a whole lot of work in extractions, once the capital was set-up. (Local glass-blowers make alchemy labs cheap!) The difference is, while herbalism can prevent exposure and worsening conditions, once something gets bad, herbs won't cut it. We do need some bone-setting, and periodically, a little surgery.

As a whole, we've become so obsessed with 'life-changing procedures' that it seemed like a good thing when we came up with face-transplants. But, honestly, that stuff is expensive. How many malaria victims could have been treated, with the cash from one face transplant? There's a strict avoidance in the AMA-run medical world of anything close to medical accounting. It's simple to ask: for each way that we could spend this $1, how much benefit, statistically, would be provided? Cost-effectiveness isn't even considered, so it's no wonder that medical costs rise and health deteriorates. The solution is obvious - we have to track the improvement to quality of life, for each medical action, and assign treatment based on rate of return. (Return is in 'Happiness-Years' per dollar; not that you set a dollar value to a year of healthy happiness! Instead, this gives you a common unit, "Hap.Yr./Dollar" that you can use to compare treatments. This isn't a "price on human life" - it's just a way to accurately allocate resources between life-saving methods. That means more lives saved.)

Consider how things go at the doctor's office: you sign in, answer the receptionist's questions, which they record, and then wait. You're taken to a room, where a nurse asks the same questions, then you wait. A doctor arrives, asks the same questions, then swabs your tongue and packages it for the lab technician to test, later. You leave, and return in a few days, repeat the process, and find that their solution is to offer you an expensive pill filled with a compound found in an abundant weed. We pay these people for their skills, but they aren't being utilized effectively. A doctor who specializes in a diagnostic field (parasite pathology?) could be contacted, and a special visit held after they'd reviewed your file (only answer once, online). If you don't need a specialist, or emergency life-saving (that'd be the surgery/ER guys... we still need them) then just call up your local herbalist/nurse. They do basic diagnostics - common colds & ailments, pediatric and geriatric regulars, and routing to specialists. Local training seminars let you get certification in a year or two, without memorizing all the names of the bones in your hand, or pulling 16 hour shifts as an intern. Too bad the AMA and Surgeon General would never let it happen... it'd mean the death of their industry. If the music execs could have gotten Napster, before it formed, they would have. AMA has a lock on medicine, here in the states, and they kow-tow to pharma and insurance. It creates a lot of pressure for an underground, which might not be bad, because a distributed underground could break pharma patents, without risk of litigation. (It looks really bad, when a pharmaceutical company sues a midwife for extracting their "patent" from the plants she grew.)

@mjn Yeah, the old books on pharmacology are pretty sweet. The distinction I was making was between plant extractions, and their peculiar 'mineral medicine' - calomel, and the like, were mineral and metal compounds, and metal oxides are notoriously sickening. As long as you're careful about plant solvents and distillation temperatures, plants are actually very safe, and definitely not snake oil. :)

@dawg
There is certainly a lot of interest in herbalism.  Web sites abound, as do books.  You could, perhaps, turn it into a home-business, but more than just growing and extracting herbals, you need to market them.  That might be the bigger challenge.

Our view is a bit different.  If you go back to ye olde tymes, there was a still-house in most large manor homes.  The still house (often a room in the basement) was were herbs and other medicines were processed.  This is a bit closer to what we have in mind - a return to the notion that you just keep certain things on hand for emergencies and sickness.  Naturally, shelf-life varies quite a bit, so some things need to be harvested and stored annually.  Some skills need to be learned and practiced - the spagyric techniques than Anthony mentioned is among them.  I've done some of this already and plan to do more.

- Mark

@Sweeney
Yes, diet is a big problem in the U.S. (not so much elsewhere).  Fortunately, there is something you can do about it - personally.  Start shopping for fresh foods and prepare them yourself.  Ideally, find a farmer's market in your community.  Get to know them.  Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture - they supply "food shares" once a week).  Cooking your own food does several things:

1.  You tend to make what you like, so you enjoy food more.
2.  You get to control the portion sizes.
3.  You get to control what goes into it:  less butter, salt, etc.
4.  It tends to avoid artificial preservatives, etc.

As you start to eat better, you'll lose some weight.  To lose more - add exercise.  Some CSA's have a work-share program which mean that you can work on their farm and get a reduced rate on fresh food.  Besides healthy exercise, it gets you out into the air and meet new people.

- Mark

PS.  You can also make yourself nice, wholesome, nutritious lunches to eat in that dull, drab, grey cubicle in that large, monolithic office building.  :)

Regarding earlier remarks concerning old pharmaceutical books, I have come across Principles of Pharmacy as a free Google book. It's a bit better than earlier books (this from 1915 or so), but is largely focused on the method to produce various drug forms.  Some description of medical properties (ie, treatments) are included.  This is a very, long detailed book on the production of drugs in a small lab.  There is an interesting description of various sugars on pg. 628.  Also a discussion of Digitalis (per references above) on pg. 643.  As with all old medical books, I urge great caution in using any of this information for treatment of medical conditions.  You should consult a medical professional before making or using any medical substances for treatment.

- Mark

Thought I'd provide a link to the harvard info for reference ... http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/

Unfortunately, I don't.  I have a growing list of chronic conditions that are completely untreated:  Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, migraine, psoriasis and an increasingly frustrating case of tinnitus.  I have been out of work for almost 3 years now, and even when I was working, the only 3 employers who offered health insurance each laid me off 2 weeks before that insurance was set to start (gee, just a coincidence, they don't really plan it like that...)

I have tried St. John's Wort, but unfortunately it didn't seem to have much effect for the period I tried it.  I learned through the research program that it can take awhile for an antidepressant to have an effect ... in my case, in fact, it took about 6 months for a noticeable effect to show up (once I was out of the double-blind study, for the last phase of the study we knew we were getting the real stuff and it was just to measure effects and side effects) whereas most participants had measurable effects in 2-3 months.  I had only tried St. John's Wort for a month or so before giving up (it was years prior to when I was in the research program).  Unfortunately, I've been completely without income now for almost 3 years and can only get what I can get on food stamps, and I am limited there to stores within driving range.  The nearest sizeable city that I know of that has a natural foods store is a good 50 miles away, which is more gas than I can spare. :/  I don't even know if those herbal remedies are obtainable on food stamps, but I know basic over-the-counter medicine, like aspirin, is not.  I can buy stuff that's bad for me, like salty snacks or energy drinks, but not cough drops nor aspirin.

You said that you lost some weight back when and this is great keeping weight off is a biggy. When it comes to keeping healthy and trying to avoid poisions you must not only consider the food that you eat but also the chemicals that you put onto your skin. Have you heard of xeno-oestrogens? Theres lots of them around especially in houshold products. They have oestrogen like properties and can help you to put on weight especially for women. Your wife may have hear of these.

Now clearners you use every so oftern are probably too much trouble to be worth avoiding or finding an alternative, however stuff you use all of the time life soap powder for your laundry can be easliy replaced. Use Boraz and Baking Soda mixed in 1:1 ratio

Also use coconut oil for moisturiser as opposed to cheap brand moisturiser as this contains all sorts of stuff. You can also cook in the stuff and is better for you than vegatable oil which degrades on heating.

Also avoid deoderants which contain aluminium like rollons. The aluminium penetrates the skin and accumulates in the liver and brain so my research says.

I try to follow the Paleolithic diet and love it I feel very fresh on it. see rob wolf paleo solution. I've just launch another health topic albeit more specific, please check it out