Arizona state lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a proposal that could appear on the 2010 ballot. House Concurrent Resolution 2014 would amend the state Constitution by barring any rules or regulations that force Arizonans to participate in a health-care system, government-run or otherwise. The measure, approved by the House Health and Human Services Committee, also would ensure individuals retain the right to pay for private health coverage with their own dollars.br /br /The ballot measure is similar to one narrowly rejected by Arizona voters last year. This time, advocates say the ballot language is clearer – ensuring, for example, that patients covered under the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System wouldn’t be impacted. During the 2008 campaign, AHCCCS officials and Governor Janet Napolitano argued against the bill claiming it would increase costs.br /br /Arizona’s House Speaker Kirk Adams the key is to ensure patients remain the focal point, “not bureaucrats, not government programs, not insurance companies.” Referring the measure to the ballot sends a message to Washington, he said, “putting Arizona’s stake in the ground” in a show of support for medical choice and the free market.br /br /”People should have a choice if they don’t want to be part of something, for whatever reason,” said Dr. Eric Novack, a Glendale orthopedic surgeon who also supported last year’s ballot proposition.br /br /Rep. Phil Lopes of Tucson said, “This is an ideologically driven effort because they don’t like government, and they don’t want government running health care.”br /br /strongDr. Grout’s Comment:/strongbr /br /Many people see a one-size-fits-all government health care plan coming. In an interview with the New York Times, President Obama said that “the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here … there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place.”br /br /Whoa, it is not just the elderly – look at any school full of children and you see far too many who are sick. The U.S. government reports that 1 out of every 6 children has a developmental disability. The CDC reports that 1 in 150 children has a href=”http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/articles/autism.html”autism/a. About 1 in 10 children in public schools has a href=”http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/articles/attention_deficit.html”ADHD/a. a href=”http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/articles/asthma.html”Asthma/a has more than doubled since 1980 affecting 1 in 4. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (July 2007), “new epidemics in chronic health conditions among children and youth will translate into major demands on public health and welfare in the coming decades.” The study found “from 15 to 18 percent of children and adolescents have some sort of a href=”http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/articles/inflammation.html”chronic health condition/a, nearly half of whom could be considered disabled.” The predominant form of medicine practiced in the United States has created a system whereby money is made when people are sick. The disease management paradigm is one that employers and unemployed people find far too expensive.br /br /Our pursuit in the last 40 years of new drugs and surgery techniques has a dismal track record. As Sen. Tom Daschle pointed out, the high rate of people dying from medical errors every year (100,000, or the equivalent of a 747 crashing every day and a half) is unacceptable. And that does not include the 60,000 people who died from the prescription drug Vioxx. Standardization, one-size-fits-all, raises the specter of forced drugs, forced vaccinations and annual mammograms in the name of “prevention.” Some of us do not want to take all the a href=”http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/articles/vaccinations.html”vaccinations/a or take them as fast as the CDC prescribes. Some of us want to use the safer a href=”http://www.arizonaadvancedmedicine.com/articles/thermography.html”thermography/a for breast cancer screening, even though the establishment is still invested in radiation and mammography.br /br /If health care reform can bring about lower costs and a healthier population, then we must be open to innovation and forms of medicine which do not necessarily fill the coffers of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. We must look at the many forms of green medicine which are less expensive. By green medicine I mean proven modalities ranging from homeopathy and acupuncture, to heavy metal chelation and the use of God-given nutrients to restore health. The public is already voting with its feet.br /br /This comes down to a matter of education and choice. We can choose green medicine for health, or choose disease management for illness. The solution to the health care issue is to give Americans more choice, not less. This proposed Arizona legislation would do just that.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4769404502414351890-7736859081060128482?l=arizonaadvancedmedicine.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div