Should
publicly funded health programs pay for alternative services and
treatments that have not been tested in controlled clinical settings?
Why or why not?
Due Monday, December 10, 2012
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12 comments:
I believe that everyone should be given the same opportunities when it comes to healthcare. If there is an alternative treatment or experimental drug that may save someones life, it should be given as a treatment option... even if the person is on a government healthcare program.
Every single drug on the market was experimental at one time or another. There is no harm using these experimental drugs as a last resort if it may save someones life. Insurance companies may end up paying less if they covered the cost of an experimental drug than if they kept trying a bunch of various other treatment options that weren't working.
I think that if you are approved to be on a health care program (government funded or not), every necessary treatment to save someones life or to make their quality of life better should be made available.
Chelsea Holgate
I think that the treatments should be available to publicly funded health programs. There are certain treatments that are available that haven't been tested in controlled clinical settings that may be able to treat a patient who would otherwise be unable to receive the treatment. There may be limits to the amount being spent on treatments. I think everyone should have the chance to receive the care they need, but I think that other less expensive options should be tried before excessive spending starts.
There are so many different types of alternative medicine, its hard to put them all in one group and say “yes” or “no” You have chiropractic, herbal treatments, acupuncture, homeopathic, hypnosis, special diets, and meditation…Just to name a few. I think chiropractic and changing diet are the two alternative medicines that I would say yes to, I think there are enough results out there showing these are somewhat effective treatments for certain disorders. Statistically speaking im not sure what the results are in regards to curing patients. I think they would fall into the preventative area of treatment.
However, if I had to give an overall answer it would be no. There just isn’t enough money out there to fund all these different types of treatments that may or may not help someone. If there is a known good treatment that has a high rate of success and is widely used, then this is the safe and best way to treat. There are too many unknowns when it comes to treating people, we need to make sure that these patients are getting the best care at the best price. We don’t have an endless supply of money or time to try this one, then this one….etc…Finally, if all else fails we will use the mainstream treatment. It’s just not viable and doesn’t present much longevity.
If these alternative treatments really work, then get them set up in clinical testing, get FDA approvals and make them part of the mainstream. Until then, use of them is a personal decision and should be paid for as such.
How can alternative medicine be made available to the public when the need for basic medicine hasn't even been met yet? To answer the question directly, I would say no for the following reasons: one, alternative medicines have not been scientifically proven, two, it would be a waste of money. Let me expand on the first one and say that no medicine is really a medicine unless it has been proven by science. Sure there are treatments out there based on traditions and customs that people of various cultures use. Some work in some case and others do not but what they lack is science. They have not been developed scientifically, they have not been tested. No one knows the side effects and so on. The second point is that it will be a waste of money to provide such services. That money should be spent on improving, promoting and providing real medicine. Morever, people should be given more access to that sort of healthcare which has been validated by science. Another poing that I would like to make is the fact that alternative medicines are usually community sponsored. By that I mean, each community and each culture has numerous alternative medicines of its own. So if a person may require it, he or she can simply look to their respective community and culture and they'll likely find it there.
I do not really have a clear answer for this. Yes and no. I believe that people have the right to life and the freedom to select any form of treatment that they feel is necessary. What exactly is meant by alternative services and treatments? Aromatherapy? Meditation? Herbal treatments? Voodoo? If there is a treatment that has not been tested or approved, this does not negate its effectiveness. As Chelsea said, every single drug on the market today was experimental at one time, so it is unfair to deny someone treatment that may help them just because it is ahead of the curve and has not yet been approved. However, I don’t think that this is financially possible In the system that we have in place. Our nation is unable to provide the basic needs of the many for basic healthcare, so I am not sure why the idea of alternative treatment being covered by government programs is even being considered. Before something can be covered by health programs, they have to be tested, obviously. So perhaps the people in need of these alternative treatments could be used as test subjects in a controlled clinical setting in order to establish the positive and negative effects of a treatment and hopefully get the treatment approved for coverage by public health programs. This way, individuals would not have to pay for these treatments. In the past I have had muscle spasms that have warped my spine, and I went to a chiropractor that was covered by my work's insurance and it was amazing- the chiropractor fixed me up great. These treatments should be covered because although they are alternative, they are effective. I think that as long as a treatment is effective, it should be covered, no matter what avenue it may be, be it mainstream or alternative, chemo or acupuncture, dialysis or hypnosis, it doesn’t matter. As long as it helps successfully treat the individual in a progressive and efficient manner. However, I also recognize that we simply do not have the funds to cover alternative treatments. We do not even have the funds to provide many mainstream treatments. So yes, It should be covered, given that the treatment is effective and produces successful results. And no, it cannot be covered due to the lack of funds.
I don't think that medicines that haven't been tested in clinically controlled settings should be paid for by publicly funded programs. They tend to be more expensive, and if they haven't been tested, then it could cause a huge problem financially and ethically.
However, if they are simply homeopathic treatments or some kind of treatment that isn't going to be dealing with man-made medications, they should be funded. Homeopathic treatments are always being discovered and done to shy away from the use of chemical medications.
No, I don’t believe publicly funded health programs should pay for alternative services and treatments that haven’t been tested in a controlled clinical setting. The reason is because the whole purpose of a controlled clinical setting is to test a procedure and make sure it has a clear scientific purpose. Without any type of scientific evidence, the treatment is useless and may be harmful. The health care organization is so important because it toys with the life of people. Why would any healthcare organization try to use a treatment or service that isn’t proven to work?
In some cases even controlled treatments or services that have been proven to work have had a negative effect on people. When this happens it can be very dangerous to the patient and the healthcare organization. I know this because when my little brother was sick, he was given a medicine that was supposed to help his fever. However, this medicine didn’t work on my brother for whatever medical reason and he ended up at the hospital. He was flown here to Phoenix because the doctors in my hometown didn’t know what went wrong. Here in Phoenix they stated that the medicine that was prescribed to him was the reason why his fever didn’t get better. Instead it got worse and he was up to 103. This is really bad, especially for a baby. They usually can’t handle fevers this high. I honestly don’t know how my brother survived this.
This is why it’s very important to test a procedure first, to stay away from situations like these. Also not only is it efficient to test a procedure once but many times. It’s better to be safe the sorry.
Therefore, if people have been hurt by treatments or services that have been tested to work imagine what kind of things could occur if people started receiving treatments/services that haven’t been tested. The consequences would be at a much higher rate. More organizations would be sued, and more people would be getting sick; all because they couldn’t test their treatment first. I think it would save the organizations much more money to do the procedures right the first time.
That’s why when scientists find a resolution to a specific disease or sickness; they first test their discovery on animal; for instance rats and rabbits. They do this because if the treatment or service works then the animal will be free from harm. However, if the animal becomes ill, then obviously the treatment or procedure didn’t work. Imagine if humans were the genie pigs, some people would end up really hurt, live with lifelong effects or even possibly experience death.
Many could say that some alternative medications could possibly work because it could be a person’s last hope but why take that risk if no one has the slightest clue on what the outcome might be. Sometimes it’s a good thing to take risks and chances in life, but with procedures that have been proven/tested with a higher chance of having a positive outcome.
-Stephanie Galaviz
I believe medicines that haven't been tested yet shouldn't be publicly funded in certain circumstances. For instances if an individual is ill and there is a medicine that is said to heal them but hasn't been tested yet then no. I say this because the money for the medicine is vey expensive and it could have a negative affect on the person who is sick. Which is an obvious waste of money and threat to the persons health.
On the flip side, say an individual is to the point of life or death and the only chance they have is trying this new untested medicine, by all means the drug should be publicly funded. I feel there is no price to someones life and if they have nothing to lose, to me its the right choice.
I believe that alternative treatments and modalities that are being taken out from public funds should be reliable and well tested before being handed down to the people (those who paid them for the funds that theyre using) I certainly understand that clinical studies for pharmaceutical drugs have to go through 4 steps which can take years and years before it can be approved, I think that alternative treatments have to atleast pass the first 2 steps of pharmaceutical studies before it can be released or atleast test for what ever side effects it can cause.
In todays world health is very important and we cant compromise our health because something cost less but not proven to be safe because in the long run it can cause harm than do good. I believe that we have to use people's money wisely - even though we may know that something can be an alternative to what treatment they currently have we have to go by what is proven and safe
ARLLY GARCIA
I believe like a good marriage there needs to be two, and a balance between the two. I am advocate user of Alternative Medicine. In Alternative Medicine I notice the medicine is tailor made to you and even beyond that, its tailor to you holistically as a whole. So therefore, there are things I do not get at my regular Physicians Office; and there is things that I get at my Alternative Medicine Office. However I think that there should be a balance in all of it. I think they also should be some guidelines and regulations between the two as well. A lot of Alternative Medicine for example do not have to report what may be going on with you, and for some people that has cost a lot of people their lives; control clinical settings there has been tons of casualties in that aspect as well too. I believe the two can be a great marriage together; however I believe also we have to use wisdom in both arenas. For example I know that clinical trials in control setting, may play a huge part in the tradition medicine aspects; However I sometimes feel you end up being worse off than you started by the side effects. Also the same can go for Alternative Medicine. I believe we should be given that choice to pick up the services for treatment. I do not believe that either a control setting or alternative that were to far fetch off from the truth. Drug companies do hours and pay tons of funding to do control groups/settings; and we end up paying for it in the long run with medication costs. However, I heard others who used Alternative Medicine to get treatments for example; going to see an acupuncturist and end up contracting Hepatitis B from the reuse of the needles; there is just plain ole good and bad and the ugly of medicine and I still believe we should be giving a choice tested or not tested.
I think that they should be able to pay for the treatment or alternative medicines if it help then why have them use it and pay for it. Why should people that don't know the person get to choose what forms of treatment or medicines the doctor can do or give. They are the one that know there patient and what they need so they should make that call of what treatments and or medications to give alternative or not.
I don’t think that publically funded health care programs should pay for alternative treatment if they have not been tested. If the treatments were tested and successful, then they should be paid for. I think that alternative treatments might be more expensive if testing was not performed and could maybe even harm the patient further which might require more treatment and increase cost.
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