Healthcare costs are a major danger to families, companies, and in fact, the country as a whole. The two factors that are a danger to our economy are HEALTHCARE and ENERGY. I am convinced that as we put our focus on healthcare (instead of sickness care) WE CAN LOWER COSTS along the same pathway that computer technology has been lowered. Over the last number of years while there have been great advances in computer technology, the costs of that technology has come down.

My first computer did not even have a hard drive and cost (if I recall correctly) around $10,000. It was a console and operated with two large floppy drives. The first hard drive computer I bought was 10 Mega bytes (Mb) and the salesman told me that I would never fill it. Now we are dealing in really big bytes: gygabytes, terabytes, and petabytes. If computer scientists had continued to think in the same box they were thinking in when I bought my first computer, we would all be living in that same very expensive box. The plan was to always improve the technology, make it better for less money.

The general public and healthcare professionals have been thinking in the pharmaceutical box. And the pharmaceutical box has become very expensive. I am told that it costs approximately $600 million to get a label claim on one accepted drug. Others have told me that the figure of $600 million is not correct. In fact, it is closer to averaging $1 billion per drug because, to keep the figure lower, they roll into the calculation other failed drugs that were not approved. I have no exact figures to support that assumption. But we can all agree that the drug box is too expensive.

More of the general public, more companies, and more physicians are understanding that something must be done but they do not know what to do. Insurance companies do not want to contribute to lowering healthcare costs because the higher the costs, the higher the premiums, the more money they make. Instead of having a genuine concern for the well being of others, greed has almost consumed the sickness industry. The doctors are caught in the middle, uneducated in knowing what to do. They have been living for too long in the pharmaceutical box. And like the fleas in the jar that keep hitting the lid, they cannot jump out when the lid is removed because they have been conditioned.

The plan that I will present in my next installment for lowering healthcare costs will include so much more than my just saying, "Study and use glycomics." It will include saying, "The answer to the healthcare crisis is STAYING WELL." The plan will call for helping people focus on the pathway of wellness and prevention instead of sickness. The plan will call for more education in what is available outside the drug box that is a lot lower in cost without the harmful side effects.

To accelerate the inevitable paradigm shift in sickness care to wellness will require a number of factors.

(a) An understanding that a really great idea or new concept normally takes forty years marching around the mountain of confusion before it is accepted. It took about that long before the medical community learned that lemons and limes TREATED and CURED SCURVY. It is reported that over a million people died of scurvy between the time they knew what to do and the time they actually did it. And still today we are not allowed to put a label on the lemon. Glycomics is about twenty years old.  The lemon is evidence based and the public demand it.  Glycomics is evidence based and the public will demand it.

(b) It will take education, education of the general public and education of the physicians and other healthcare professionals. That is our dedication.

(c) But proper change cannot be made quickly when there is such a strong attraction for the status quo that the change will cost more time and/or money to make the change. Why would anyone what to make a change to something better when the something worse is paid for by the government or insurance? Only the educated would do that. Why would a sick person want something better when it is easier to just let the others take control and solve the problem while someone else pays for it?

(d) It will require a person taking control of his or her own life. But if it still costs more, that is a difficult choice even though he knows it is the best thing to do.

So, to lower healthcare costs, it will certainly help if we can see money saved instead of seeing increased costs. If families can save money for thinking outside the drug box and have a giant team looking out for their well being, then they will be willing to consider the new plan.

A lot of pieces have to be put in place and all this sounds so complicated, but I assure you that in my Third Installment for Cutting Healthcare Costs, IT WILL BE EXPLAINED AND IT WILL BE CLEAR AND IT WILL BE SIMPLE. AND IT WILL EVEN BE LEGAL.

The format for making sure the plan is easily understood, I will have a training area to be viewed. To introduce the plan, we will also have an introduction similar to what we have for explaining why you would want my book, Expand Your Mind - Improve Your Brain. (Link to this introduction is found in the wording directly under the book on the Home Page at www.endowmentmed.org Another example is the introduction to why a person would want to use the healthful sugar trehalose. That link is also found on the Home Page under the picture of a bag of trehalose.

Stay tuned for the Third Installment for Cutting Healthcare Costs.