Quote from trefoil:
There's a moral in there somewhere...
Yeah, there's immoral in there somewhere... :eek:
Dr. John McDougall, whose simple program of eating a whole foods plant-based diet reverses heart disease, adult-onset diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure within just couple of weeks tells this enlightening story, which illustrates one of the biggest problems with our current approach to health "care":
In 1986 I was invited by the administration of the Seventh Day Adventist St. Helena Hospital in Napa Valley, California to run the McDougall Program as their lifestyle residential program. This was a good match because their founding religion believes in a vegetarian diet and a healthy lifestyle. (I am not an Adventist.) This hospital was also considered one of the best heart surgery centers in the country. Even then it seemed odd to me to invite a doctor who is against most heart surgeries to work at a hospital that makes 80% of its income from heart disease.
Now that I was working at a respected hospital, I figured, I might be able to get medical insurance to pay for patients to attend my program. I approached several well-known companies. I argued that our program could treat heart patients at a fraction of the cost of bypass surgery ($4,000 vs. $100,000). No matter how hard I tried to convince them, the sale was impossible.
A representative from one large insurer told me that they were not interested in my approach because it required the cooperation of the patient, and all the bypass surgeon had to do to relieve chest pain was to get the patient to willingly lie down on the table. They apparently had little faith in patientsâ judgment and willpower.
I countered, âBut, some patients will change their diet and they deserve this alternative.â
After some contesting I finally got the real answer, âMcDougall you just donât get it. As an insurance company we take a piece of the pie and the bigger the pie the more we get.â
