Your Voice Counts on Capitol Hill
The frenzied activity in Congress over the banking crisis is in response, at least in part, to an unprecedented outpouring of voter outrage. Less well publicized was the reaction to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). It provoked the greatest outpouring of voter activity that Capitol Hill had ever seen, and it was proof that the American people are willing to make their voices known on hot button issues.
A key campaign issue of many recent campaigns has been healthcare reform. AAHF actively supported the Wellness Doctrine (H.Con.Res. 406), which emphasized that any effort to reengineer the U.S. healthcare system should incorporate sustainable wellness programs that address the underlying causal factors associated with chronic disease. This would fundamentally change the entire focus of the national healthcare discussion. USA Today has stated that nearly 50% of every government dollar is spent on healthcare. This fact alone practically demands that every election cycle address healthcare reform.
Healthcare concerns dominate the business pages of U.S. newspapers. In his book America’s Health Care Revolution: Who Lives? Who Pays? Who Dies?, Joseph Califano, the secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under Jimmy Carter, showed that Chrysler Corporation paid more in healthcare costs for their workers than they paid for the steel to build their automobiles.
Regina Herzlinger, Ph.D., professor of business administration at Harvard and author Who Killed Health Care?, published a study that spoke to the pockets of Main Street America. It showed that the single most frequent cause of bankruptcy filing for individuals was unpaid healthcare costs—that any of us, even if we have health insurance, may be one major illness away from financial ruin. In a life-threatening health crisis, we want our loved ones to receive the best available care, regardless of the cost.
Americans pay more for healthcare than any other country on the planet, yet we rank low in every measure of longevity and quality of life. Clearly, the actions the government takes with regard to healthcare is of paramount importance to every American. But do you know the voting record of your elected Senators and Representatives? Does your Senator support access to dietary supplements, or your right to understand the science behind the use of those supplements? Does your Congress person support wellness as an essential part of healthcare reform?