April 2004

Health coalition: Share ‘healing’ stories to
lobby for more CAM recognition

A coalition of 16 individuals and organizations — the Campaign for Better Health, which includes Citizens for Health, the Chopra Foundation (Deepak Chopra, MD) and Andrew Weil, MD — has launched an initiative to tell lawmakers that Americans are taking responsibility for their own healthcare and require access to all healthcare options and the freedom to make educated choices.

The coalition’s initiative, Healing is Happening, has created a Web site (www.betterhealthcampaign.org) on which individual’s can share their personal experiences about healing. The stories are immediately sent to each individual’s Congressional representatives. According to the coalition, “these stories are personal testaments that there are many integrative health approaches used by millions of Americans today, approaches that offer viable solutions to the nation’s healthcare crisis.”

According to the Campaign for Better Health, more than 50 percent of the U.S. population uses some type of complementary and alternative health product or practice and the number of visits to integrative health practitioners is nearly double that of conventional medical doctors. And Americans spend more than $30 billion each year on alternative treatment and prevention that is often not covered by traditional insurance.

The coalition is concerned that CAM solutions are not reflected the national health policies.

Source: Campaign for Better Health, www.betterhealthcampaign.org

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