Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

consciousness-based education and governmentgrowth of these costs. Neither the “regulatory” policies of the 1970’snor the “competitive” policies of the 1980’s have slowed the growth ofhealth care spending. (p. 1)Although medical expenses are higher in the U.S. than in any othercountry, the cost crisis is not limited to one nation; it is a worldwideproblem. Moreover, the medical expenditure challenge is noncyclical;it continues to grow worse with time. Consequently, new and innovativeinterventions in the health care field will be required to slow thisgrowth and, ultimately, to decrease medical spending.Present cost-containment efforts focus mainly on attempting toimprove the financing, delivery, and administration of the medicalsystem. This type of improvement so far has had limited results(Jencks & Schieber, 1991). Medical spending is still escalating, yetmany measures of health are not improving; indeed, some are declining.For example, the cancer rate is increasing in most developed nationsin spite of significant funding for medical treatment and research. Suchdata suggest that current cost-containment strategies will inevitably failin the long term if they do not address the underlying causes of thehealth care problem (Schwartz, 1987). Policy makers can no longer relysolely on administrative, financial, or treatment-oriented strategies toreduce medical expenses. New strategies are needed to prevent diseaseand enhance health, and thereby to reduce medical payments.Most traditional preventive interventions, such as pure water andfood, hygiene, and vaccination, have been fully exploited in the developedcountries. Hence, further investment in these types of preventionis unlikely to yield significant improvements in national health andreductions in medical expenses. Other preventive approaches, however,offer great unrealized possibilities. These include lifestyle change, stressreduction, and environmental improvement. The U.S. Department ofHealth and Human Services (1990b) conducted an exhaustive analysisof the research on the benefits of prevention and concluded:Recent evidence confirms that better control of fewer than 10 healthrisk factors—for example, poor diet, infrequent exercise, use of tobaccoand drugs, and abuse of alcohol—could prevent between 40 and 70 percentof all premature deaths, a third of all cases of acute disability, andtwo-thirds of all cases of chronic disability. (p. v)350