Alternative Medicine in the Financial "Cross Hairs". Sharing a Post from Another Substack Writer
#46 2023 The Rowen Report
Dear Subscriber,
This week I had a chance to speak with three patients our office has seen for ozone therapy. One, a woman in her 70s said that ozone therapy reversed a paralysis she had about 6 years ago, and she has done well ever since. Another is a man in his 50s who say multiple conventional doctors for a variety of serious joint issues and got nowhere. Ozone injections changed his life. The third is a medical doctor. She had bladder dysfunction and a massive effusion in her left elbow. One ozone injection to her elbow fixed that problem. And her bladder issues got at least 80% better after ozone treatment to her pelvis at the pubic bone. She got another from Terri.
Incidentally, the husband of the older woman recently suffered a TIA (mini stroke). He has atrial fibrillation, a high risk. He went 6 years on a concoction I’ve used for decades on hundreds of patients, including on my own dad, and had no events. I immediately suspected what had happened, and she confirmed it. He ran out of the key supplement about 5 days before his mini-stroke. Insurance doesn’t pay for that, but does pay for highly expensive Eloquis. However, lacking Medicare drug coverage, she cannot afford the many hundreds of dollars per month of Eloquis the doctors recommended, and they will likely return to the original natural concoction. Much cheaper than the insurance covered chemical.
I am relating these stories in light of another Substack writer’s post below. His message hit me hard, and it mirrors my own sentiments. Our type of medicine could transform the world of health care. But it is beyond reach of the many. Why? Because we have allowed government and the insurance industries to be sold out to Pharma and conventional medicine. Alternative medicine is really the traditional medicine, and has been malevolently supplanted by a government protected monopolistic system of profiteering chemical based Band-Aid medicine, not healing. Conventional medicine is terrific for acute problems. But most of the medical costs in USA are due to chronic disease, for which conventional chemical-based medicine does little.
After the common man gets taxed, and then squeezed for medical insurance costs, he has little left to be able to access treatments like the above. So, it is largely true that “Only those with disposable income can afford…”
He continues that this is not the fault of the non-mainstream providers. It is the fault of a corrupt system that makes us “alternative” in the first place.
We cannot do these therapies gratis. Yes, with my recent encumbrances, our office, with a now most limited physician schedule, is perhaps making ends meet, and not much more. Medical offices have expenses – rent, utilities, equipment and LABOR. We cannot serve gratis and survive. But even at retirement age, Terri does not want to hang it up, as we actually see often unbelievable results, as witnessed on our YouTube channel (www.YouTube.com/user/RobertRowenMD).
Medical expenses are now consuming 20% of the US economic output. This is a travesty as in 1960 it was about 5%. What is left for the common man after 20% of what he would otherwise keep in his pocket is taken for insurance or direct medical costs.
I will be addressing my natural concoction to “thin” blood and reduce risk of stroke in risky patients in an upcoming issue of the Premium section. I am very grateful for the support of so many of you in subscribing, as your support there helps make up, through my journalism, for the losses we’ve had at the hands of government.
We have seen patients who spent thousands in conventional offices and got nowhere and perhaps worse at the hands of chemical medicine, and for a mere fraction of that, achieved everything they wanted, like the patients above. But, at least one of those patients above barely could cover our recommendations after all their other medical expenses and failure of insurance to cover actual healing.
We have tried to help in every way possible. Terri, who is in charge of office and services now, has kept a fixed lid (no price increases) on ozone therapy for many years, despite huge increases in expenses and inflation. As you know, government (state and federal) have not been kind to me and others, who challenge the political paradigms, in their alleged mission to “protect the public”. But the end result of that is to further harm the public by reducing access to the non-conventional. Consider the attacks on those who spoke out against the genetic jab mandates.
I close my part of this post by questioning the common use of the term “medication” when it is applied to DRUGS. “Medication” is a softened term which I like to apply to herbs, natural tonics, body support. Yes, it has expanded in modern times to embrace “drugs”; but society needs borders in definitions. The “medications” used before the Rockefeller patented petrochemical pharmaceutical paradigm rolled in were plants, herbs, natural teas, tinctures, homeopathic and medical foods. We also had energy medicine in those days which the FDA wiped out a few generations ago. These non-profitable (non-patentable) but healing plant approaches have been all but wiped out in the system that drugs you forever with suppressing chemicals rather than uplift your body to heal. Pharma will chemically alter a safe natural plant compound to get a patent on the non-natural version for profit, despite the fact that the chemical alteration renders it not natural to the body and therefore risky. This kind of system just has to change. (I also disdain the term “health care”. What we have here is “disease maintenance”, not “health” care.)
Now, I offer a recent post from Charles Eisenstein on Substack which speaks to some of the deepening challenges facing “alternative (to drugs) medicine”.
To Your Excellent Health,
Robert Jay Rowen, MD
“““My wife Stella, who is an amazing healer, is facing the contention that bodywork and alternative medicines are elitist. “Only those with disposable income can afford them, and predominantly white privileged women indulge in them.” I’ll respond to this concern as a specific illustration of the point of my recent piece, Notes on Privilege.
It is certainly true that our current system puts most non-mainstream healthcare options beyond the reach of the underprivileged. However, this is not the fault of the alternative therapies themselves. It is the fault of a system that makes them “alternative” in the first place.
Natural, alternative, and holistic therapies are intrinsically cheaper and more accessible than high-tech medicine. But are they as effective? For some acute conditions, they are not. But for the chronic conditions that afflict most Americans, they are more effective. That’s why people pay for them out-of-pocket, even when they can barely afford them.
“Show me your evidence!” “Prove they are more effective!” I could cite research, but would the skeptic read it? Research is systemically biased toward profitable therapies, but even so, a vast literature is available affording a glimpse into an alternative universe where our most intractable diseases are easily cured. One compelling book comes to mind right now, Ancient Secrets of a Master Healer, by Clint Rogers, about the legendary Vedic lineage-holder Dr. Naram. Even after thirty years in the alternative health universe, I was deeply affected by this book.
Some people argue that if alternatives really were so effective, they would be incorporated more fully into our healthcare system. Ironically, this argument affirms crucial assumptions of the edifice of privilege. It assumes that the system of pharma-funded research, regulatory agencies, and for-profit medical institutions is sound. It assumes that the authorities are trustworthy guardians of the public interest. It assumes that those practitioners and therapies that are left on the margins are there because they have less merit.
Think about all the races, cultures, and people who have been left on the margins. Is that because a merit-based system has justly found them to be less worthy of inclusion? Well, the same mechanisms that exclude whatever doesn’t serve power and profit operate in the world of health alternatives too.
Taking for granted the soundness of the existing system, health equity is simply a matter of improving access to that system. If, however, the existing system serves power and profit better than it serves people, we have to look sympathetically at what it excludes.
The realm of the alternative, natural, and holistic has the potential to return medicine to the people. It can reempower people to take charge of their own health, aided by practitioners who don’t need an expensive high-tech infrastructure behind them, or expensive patented drugs. Such a system would be far more egalitarian than the current one, and the general level of well-being far higher.
Stella offers the following comment:
In my decades of treating thousands of clients and teaching hundreds of students, I have learned that you don’t actually need highly specialized knowledge to access miracle-level healing. Anyone can learn it. This is why I began teaching Resonant Attention—to remind people how powerful their own hands and minds really are.
What I teach is just one of many easily accessible modalities of energy medicine and healing touch. These new-and-ancient technologies are in reach for almost everybody and should be common knowledge, taught in grade schools. The fact that they’ve been marginalized and undervalued mirrors the treatment of the people for whom they are currently inaccessible.
In other words, far from being accessories of privilege, these practices have the potential to erase an important aspect of privilege.
Certainly, someone working two jobs at minimum wage to support a family isn’t going to have time or money for hour-long healing sessions in a quiet room somewhere at $150 a pop. But why are people so economically desperate to begin with? One reason is healthcare costs, which consume one-fifth of US GDP. (It was about one-twentieth in 1960.) These costs present a huge economic burden to individuals, organizations, and government. One hundred million Americans are saddled with medical debt, which is involved in over half of all bankruptcies.
We could, and should, distribute these costs more fairly, but much of the cost is inherent in the high-tech modalities that dominate today. It doesn’t help anyone, privileged or not, to offer false medicines, to uphold disempowering paradigms, or to apply expensive and complicated technologies when simple ones would do.
The transformation of our healthcare culture won’t happen by leaving it to the very institutions that profit from our chronic disease and disparity. Real equity comes from reclaiming our bodies, reskilling medicine, and returning medicine to the people.”””
To Beth,
I think the cost consideration is based on a larger picture than just one person. If you carefully read through my comments, I raised the issue that you are taxed to death, forced to get insurance that only covers what you don't want, and then you can't afford what you do want. Were government and insurance to cover these, your plan would take care of it. And, costs would come way down for those who don't have coverage. These treatments can be labor intensive, like blood ozone therapy. But in the long run, they are much less expensive because they actually heal, in contrast to forever painting over symptoms with drugs. In a bigger picture, I can generally get a person better and at far less cost than the costs of burn, cut and poison medicine. Alternative medicine for cancer is much less expensive overall than conventional. But insurance does not pay for it, so it is much more costly to the one challenged with the condition.
Please see our list of trainees for anyone in that area. Others may do ozone, but we think our trainees will be the best. List is at our office website