A VISION FOR A NEW APPROACH
HEALTH AND HEALTHCARE
Prevention and Adjustments

All too often, healthcare for Americans is viewed as a zero-sum game, with patients competing for limited resources . .. A game of winners and losers. Focusing only on the cost of care is looking at health in America through the wrong end of the microscope. There is another way to view the value of prevention and adjustment in adding years to life. Good health not only adds to the joy of life and the avoidance of misery. It also adds trillions of dollars in economic benefits for all Americans. A healthier American makes for a WEALTHIER AMERICA. Each year of life confirms the case for wise investment in preventing and adjusting spinal dis-ease . . . Offering a powerful vision for a healthier future. That vision offers Americans the potential of a healthcare system as diverse, dynamic, and caring as Americans themselves.

The immense potential her with the social trend on prevention and wellness gives us a fresh start in forging a new vision for American healthcare. The vision starts with the question, "How do we lift the burden of dis-ease?" Chronically ill, poor people jam the nation's emergency rooms; probably the least effective, most expensive way to get care for chronic illness; because it is the only place where they are guaranteed access. Perhaps most discouraging is how our current focus on COSTS diminishes our vision of what healthcare can mean in America. Time for a GREATER VISON for a healthier America. We see our way to an America committed to the QUALITY OF LIFE, and with Quality naturally precedes QUANTITY, a reduction in DEATH from our most common killing and disabling dis-eases. The force of a national campaign to healthcare, one oriented to prevention, wellness, rapid assessment, and early correction by adjustment. Such a vision would not start with "What will it COST?" but with "How many lives are we enhancing and SAVING?" It will bring America more productive workers, more experienced brainpower in the workforce, and benefits economically.

It will place a focus on PREVENTION, detection, and early correction; ahead of the vicious cycle of delayed treatment, worsening spinal dis-ease, and expensive interventions.

To get there, America's health reform will be driven by the vision of INCLUSION. America's healthcare system must give every person the opportunity to learn about prevention, and get the assessment and adjustment. The lack of access for millions of Americans is a national tragedy, and a preventable one. Access must be the foundation for a new covenant in American healthcare. Improving access need not mean reducing the standards of care. Most Americans DO have access to healthcare. Let us focus on those who do not. Greater inclusion and access will payoff in a healthier, more active and more productive America.

Driven by INDIVIDUALIZATION. America honors the right of an individual to make choices. It should allow doctors and patients to choose the best course of care.

It should be TRADITIONAL yet INNOVATIVE. Patients know what works from their chiropractors and they know what to expect. The solid foundation upon which CHIROPRACTIC was built will not change. Most of the world's innovations in healthcare are in the diagnostic systems . . The chiropractic research breakthroughs in wellness and prevention.

Finally, INCENTIVES for people to pursue wellness, prevention, swift diagnosis, and early adjustment. America's healthcare philosophy must focus from encouraging reliance upon HOSPITALIZATION, to encouraging people to take charge of their health and wellness. The cost of prevention and wellness is SO VERY small in relation to the suffering, misery, and economic toll of chronic dis-eases and trauma. Through a focus on prevention, wellness, early assessment and adjustment. Americans will earn the largest payoff for the dollars they INVEST in their OWN HEALTHCARE. It is the best step we can take to put the patient BACK in the CENTER of CARE.

In the next round of healthcare reform, maximum value will be placed on GOOD HEALTH. The American healthcare system will focus on maintaining WELLNESS and improving overall patient OUTCOMES. The sick become WELL again. We see it every day and we EXPECT it to happen, with a well-placed, well-intentioned ADJUSTMENT.

Competition amongst providers is not a dream. We see it in all aspects of the system. Hospitals promote special procedures, their standards, and their facilities. Chiropractors are on every major street corner within the community. Competition does what it always does; gives people more choices, and more innovation.

Medicaid patients are left out in the current system. Medicaid patients are poor and sick. Many with chronic dis-ease. And they need care, and they flood the emergency rooms seeking the most expensive services in the worst place to treat chronic conditions.

A re-focus will allow these new seeds to take root and bloom. I've spoken about a vision for a new American healthcare system grounded in the virtues and qualities that make America . . . America; individual freedom, personal responsibility . . . And community caring. This system will focus on returning the PATIENT to the BACK-CENTER, and re-connect Americans to a healthcare system that is seen as remote. It is time for a shift in our vision . . . Anchored in WELLNESS, PREVENTION, early ASSESSMENT, and early ADJUSTMENT.

Let us keep our momentum going.

Let us build and American healthcare system that puts people first: grounded in the confidence that HEALTHIER AMERICANS, will lead to a wealthier, more vibrant, and more dynamic AMERICA.