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In the Race
Now, here, you see, it takes all the blogging I can do to keep in the same place. If I want to get somewhere else, I must blog twice as fast as that! You see, I'm in the Red Queen's Race...
Acupuncture, Please
By Janet Evans
Sunday, Sep 7 2008, 08:46 PM
 Acupuncture chart from Hua Shou (fl. 1340s, Ming Dynasty).
This image from Shi si jing fa *** (Expression of the Fourteen Meridians).
(Tokyo : Suharaya Heisuke kanko, Kyoho gan 1716).
I want acupuncture. Insurance doesn’t’ cover it.
I can get it and pay part of the cost.
But I don’t.
If I was to have acupuncture treatments, and they worked…it would be more cost effective than insurance paying for the medication that I’m taking.
Sometimes insurance companies (or the people pulling the strings) don’t think things through.
So, I’ll continue taking the very expensive medication for now. Insurance makes me jump through enough hoops. Like when I get an RX..which is written by the doctor…but they say it needs to be” authorized” Authorized? That ends up meaning the doctor needs to call and just say yes, I need to take the medication, “because.” In other words, they want to make sure he really meant to write that prescription when we discussed it. You know, I wasn’t sitting there twisting his arm, saying he couldn’t leave the exam room until he wrote out that prescription for that non-generic RX. It’s the “system.”
So, I found this article regarding acupuncture today…
“Whoever wins in November's going to have to do some pretty serious thinking about health care. Surveys consistently show it right near the top of the list of things voters say they're worried about -- the availability of care, as well as the cost. On that latter point, one possible solution might be coming from an unlikely source. An alternative form of treatment that involves lying completely still while they stick needles in you.”
You can read the brief interview, and even listen to it in audio
HERE
Now, it’s true, it’s about time alternative forms of healthcare were considered more thoroughly.
Acupuncture may be coming to us as a regular form of healthcare before we know it. I say that because of a case that just happened in New York. Usually when one state mandates that drugs or procedures are approved, that will spread to other states, too.
The part of this story i found interesting was that drug addicts were already being covered for acupuncture. Ah, the privileged few.
"New York Medicaid authorities were ordered by a New York State judge last week to pay the cost of acupuncture treatment for poor people, even when it is not performed by a physician. New York Medicaid authorities were ordered by a New York State judge last week to pay the cost of acupuncture treatment for poor people, even when it is not performed by a physician. The judge, Acting Justice Phyllis Gangel-Jacob of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, ruled that since medical authorities have found acupuncture to be a valid therapeutic treatment, Federal Medicaid regulations required that state Medicaid programs pay for it under appropriate circumstances. To deny payment would be irrational and inhumane, she said. "
[...]
"Under its current policy, Medicaid, a state program that pays the cost of health care for the poor, has reimbused New York City hospitals and doctors for the acupuncture treatment of more than 3,000 drug addicts. Acupuncture has been found to reduce the addicts' craving for drugs. The treatment is also receiving growing medical acceptance as a way to alleviate chronic pain. In China, where the first textbook on acupuncture was written more than 2,000 years ago, the therapy, which involves inserting needles into specific areas of the body, is widely accepted for treating a variety of ailments and diseases."
From the New York Times
HERE
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