Perhaps it’s time we make an American Indian Shaman the Secretary of Health or Surgeon General. A Shaman is an Indian Medicine Man who drives out evil spirits that are the cause of most illness. He uses things like gourds, spells, incantations and the like to heal the sick. The shaman makes use of mind-body medicine. This approach to healthcare will save us a lot of money as we adopt universal healthcare. We sure need to save money on something with the multi-billion dollar bailouts for everything else.

Another consideration is to make someone like Dr. Deepak Chopra the Secretary of Health. He is a proponent of integrative medicine or a holistic approach to healthcare. This makes use of alternative natural health remedies and unconventional methods of therapy such a meditation, yoga, acupuncture, and herbal medicines. This approach has an emphasis on spirituality. I, for one, am a believer in prayer. Unfortunately all this stuff has rather marginal scientific proof and the evidence for its effectiveness is purely anecdotal. That’s all right, because lack of scientific proof hasn’t stopped us yet, and much that first appears scientifically proven turns out to be hogwash.

The holistic approach to healthcare can save us a lot of money and make universal care entirely possible. Insurance companies need to stop paying for much of this high tech stuff like CT, MR and PET scans. If reimbursement was change with a better financial incentive for acupuncture and yoga then cardiologist, orthopedist and other physicians would stop buying some of the high tech equipment for use in their office to make an extra buck. They would suddenly start using acupuncture to treat coronary disease and yoga for back pain and swear to its effectiveness. If vaginal deliveries paid more than a C Section then the C Section rate would drop from its current high of 30% and infant mortality would even improve.

Yes, I’m for either an Indian Shaman or Dr. Deepak Chopra to be Secretary of Health. Who knows, they may even make a house call on the porch and again put the welfare and concern of the patient first. This is revolutionary stuff but it’s the change we need to make universal healthcare possible. It’s change we can believe in. Obama will probably buy into this because it’s the type care his father was accustomed to in his homeland. Extreme conservative and extreme liberal folks both love this holistic approach to healthcare, so it’s going to be an easy sell.