Home
ABC Medical Editor Supports Health Care Reform
By Stan Friedman
CHICAGO, IL (February 3, 2006) - Dr. G. Timothy Johnson closed the Midwinter
Pastors Conference this morning by exhorting the attendees to work for
health care reform, which he said "ultimately is a moral question."
"Our health care system is an absolute mess," Johnson said. "It's a
national tragedy. It is a national disgrace."
The ABC News medical editor and ordained Evangelical Covenant Church
minister, urged his colleagues to work for change so that all people
could have access to good health care.
Johnson told the gathering that despite spending by far the most money
per person on health care, the United States is the only Western
industrialized nation not to offer some sort of universal health care
coverage, suggesting the country receives a poor return on its investment.
Health care spending in the United States averages $5,500 per person
each year, Johnson said. That is nearly double that of most other
nations. Despite the massive spending, the country ranks poorly at both
ends of the life spectrum, standing 37th in life expectancy and 41st in
infant mortality.
At the heart of the issue is the high cost of overhead, Johnson said,
explaining that 30 percent of the spending is on overhead costs, such as
administration and advertising. By contrast, Medicare spends roughly
five percent on overhead costs.
Medicare is the federally managed health insurance plan for seniors over
65 and some young people with disabilities. "Someday, out of sheer
desperation, we are going to slowly expand the Medicare system,"
predicted Johnson.
For much of his talk, Johnson focused on the latest thinking regarding a
number of medical conditions.
Researchers have discovered that two-thirds of deadly heart attacks are
caused by fatty deposits inside the walls of blood vessels that break
open due to inflammation. A clot then forms. Until recently, physicians
have been unable to detect these because their presence never showed up
on standard diagnostics such as stress tests and angiograms, Johnson
said. New techniques including ultrasound are being tested. Johnson said
taking the cholesterol reducing statin medications such as Lipitor may
be able to reduce the deposits inside the walls.
Researchers now suggest a new method of determining an individual's
healthy cholesterol level, Johnson said. Previously, doctors looked at
the ratio between good (HDL) cholesterol and bad (LDL) cholesterol. Now,
physicians are looking at just the LDL number and lowering what is an
acceptable level. Once considered safe at 130, LDL levels should be down
to 100 for most people and 70 for people who also have other risk
factors for heart disease.
Speaking in the city (Chicago) most recently determined to be the most
obese in the country, Johnson said fat in the mid section is
"metabolically active" as to the more static fat elsewhere. Physicians
now refer to the belly-butt ratio, Johnson said, joking, "You can all
stand up at the end and examine each other."
Researchers also are taking a new approach to stress, saying that
calm-looking people could be more stressed than those who might seem
outwardly stressed. The difference is whether the "external environment"
matches or is different than the person's "internal environment."
Depression continues to be a major factor in heart disease, with those
who go untreated running four times the risk of having a heart attack.
He exhorted people to take medication, which he said works for most people.
Johnson told the gathering that "colon cancer should theoretically
never kill anybody" because it takes 10 years to become cancer from its
inception as a polyp. A colonoscopy is the only diagnostic test people
should consider.
Men diagnosed with prostate cancer "face a breathless array of choices"
in treatments, none of which is demonstrably better than the other,
Johnson said. The skill of the physician doing the procedure is far more
important than the procedure itself, he explained.
Women who have been treated with a lumpectomy, or local or radical
mastectomy for breast cancer, are less likely to be treated systemically
with chemotherapy if tests show no involvement in surrounding lymph
nodes. Doctors are beginning to refrain from using the practice, which
has been done to help prevent a reoccurrence. Johnson said the
additional chemotherapy probably doesn't help 70 percent of the women,
but can cause other health risks.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
