Healthcare Trends and the American Way

By Charles Ignacio Roman

According to Reuters, “Acupuncture works better than drugs like aspirin to reduce the severity and frequency of chronic headaches, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. A review of studies involving nearly 4,000 patients with migraine, tension headache, and other forms of chronic headache showed that that 62% of the acupuncture patients reported headache relief compared to 45% of people taking medications, the team at Duke University found.”

This study once again affirms the central role acupuncture has gained in recent years in the health-care marketplace. The announcement offers more evidence about the general benefit of AOM and follows another vote of confidence from the WHO via the “Beijing Declaration.” From the fMRI studies cited by Bill Reddy on the “Opposing Views” web site discussion on acupuncture www.opposingviews.com to recent discussion of acupuncture in nationwide publications like Health magazine and the AARP (its circulation of 25 million is the highest in the world for any such publication), acupuncture and Oriental medicine seem to be gaining both professional traction in the research world and currency in the popular imagination.

Will this greater popular footing translate into health-care inclusion in an Obama administration whose vision seeks to unify acrimonious disparities in the U.S.? That remains to be seen. Acupuncture is not even recognized officially as an independent profession in the Bureau of Labor statistics—an effort all the national AOM associations have sought to change.

Politicians tend to keep their ear to the ground and monitor trends. This tendency to associate with oncoming trends may well work in favor of whatever legislative advances the AOM field is likely to propose under Tom Daschle’s health-care leadership. Meanwhile, the AMA will likely continue a public relations campaign designed to limit the scope of practice (and influence) of health-care modalities that could impinge on their market-share. Alternative medicine appears to be mainstreaming to a degree that makes it harder for MDs to ignore, and battlegrounds will shift and alliances will form under the incoming Obama administration. Whatever happens, the public will be watching and hoping to find a way to stop the bleeding of escalating health-care costs—a higher percentage of the U.S. paycheck goes to health insurance than any other developed country.

The blank check free pass the health-care industry in the U.S. has enjoyed for so long may stop soon—as the Federal government, strapped with Iraq expense and corporate bailouts, may become enticed with more cost-effective models.

Charles Ignacio Roman became fascinated with Chinese medicine during his extensive travel in Asia, where he witnessed TCM offer relief without western pharmacological intervention. Roman studied writing at the University of California and contributes perspective pieces on the evolution of health-care practices and policy in the US. He invites your comments and may be reached at: charlesignacioroman@gmail.com.