Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

Health Care Cost Crisis and transcendental Meditation programabstractDuring the past two decades, the United States has become increasingly concernedwith reducing medical care expenditures while continuing to improvethe health of Americans. However, medical costs have continued to rise rapidly,despite efforts to contain them. Unlike the treatment-based strategies forhealth care that are currently in wide use, prevention-oriented approachesoffer great unrealized potential to directly improve the health of U.S. citizensand thereby to reduce medical utilization and its attendant costs. At present,however, there is little research to validate the cost effectiveness of such preventionprograms.This paper reviews the cost effectiveness of the current U.S. health caresystem as compared with those of other nations, especially Canada, andexamines the potential of effective prevention programs for alleviating thehealth care cost crisis. A strategy is suggested to lower medical care utilizationand expenditures by directing effective health-promotion and diseasepreventiveinterventions toward the highest-cost patients—that fraction ofthe population that consistently incurs the majority of all medical expenses.The scientifically validated Transcendental Meditation program is proposedas an effective preventive intervention to accomplish this strategy, and pertinenthealth-related research on the Transcendental Meditation program isreviewed. Future research possibilities are also suggested in order to enhanceand expand national preventive care and thereby to further reduce high medicalexpenditures in the U.S.IntroductionDespite numerous attempts by many governments to containaccelerating costs in the health care field during the past twodecades, medical expenditures have continued to grow rapidlyas a percentage of gross national product (GNP) throughout the world.This escalation diverts resources from other important national andinternational goals, such as job creation, housing, education, economicdevelopment, and the environment. In recent years, the medical expenditurecrisis in the United States has created growing alarm about theefficiency and equity of the U.S. medical system. Jencks and Schieber(1991) summarize the problem:Although U.S. health care costs have been in a proclaimed crisis for 10to 20 years, we have made strikingly little progress in containing the349