Word: careful
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Lobbying may be the one remaining recession-proof industry, and as Washington prepares for a summer-long debate over how to reform health care, lobbyists for every conceivable interest group have camped out in congressional anterooms to press their case. There are advocates for doctors, insurance companies, patients, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, big business and small business. And for faith healers...
...themselves "faith healers." They argue that the term dismisses what they do as simple wishful thinking. But practitioners of Christian Science as well as other alternative therapies - including acupuncture, biofeedback, herbal medicine, holistic medicine and Reiki, a Japanese healing and relaxation technique - are intent on influencing the coming health-care-reform process. "We're advocates for people who want access to spiritual treatment," says Phil Davis, a Christian Science practitioner and his church's chief lobbyist. Their goal is to encourage Congress to think of health care as more than just medical care - and to allow insurance companies to provide...
...belief, Christian Scientists are not prevented from seeking medical treatment; the church just wants to make sure that both members and nonmembers are also able to afford visits to practitioners, which typically cost from $20 to $30 per session, and longer-term services of private nurses (who provide nonmedical care such as bathing, dressing wounds and feeding) and nursing facilities. TRICARE, the military health plan, already covers these services. And the Federal Employee Health Benefits program provides partial reimbursement for stays in Christian Science nursing facilities. More recently, Christian Scientists were able to obtain a special provision in the universal...
...More emphasis on prevention and wellness: Pure common sense tells you that it's much cheaper not to get sick in the first place. But there is little financial incentive for the health-care industry in that regard. Obama says he intends to change that. Here, however, some employers are taking the lead. As Obama noted after his meeting with the business executives: "When you hear what Safeway or Johnson & Johnson or any of these other companies have done, what you've seen is sustained experimentation over many years and a shift in incentive structures so that employees see concrete...
...While these are the obvious steps, it is hard to imagine them happening without the government leading the way with a comprehensive health-reform plan. Medicare and Medicaid programs are such large players in the health-care market that they can often force changes in the way the market works. But in the end, says Orszag, "everyone needs to hold hands and move together...