Amid Reform Talk, Alternative Medicine Gets Some Love - Health Blog - WSJ

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa has cosponsored a measure to provide coverage for alternative medicine by prohibiting health insurers from discriminating against practitioners of nontraditional medicine, notes the Boston Globe. Supporters such as Harkin, a longtime back of nontraditional approaches, say that such treatments are less expensive and be administered in lieu of drugs or surgery in some cases, which could save the health-care system “tens of billions of dollars” over time, according to the Globe. Skeptics, of course, dismiss such claims. More than a third of American adults and 12% of children use these treatments, according to an NIH and CDC survey that included meditation, yoga and deep breathing exercises in addition to types we mentioned earlier. Some nursing homes have bought into the concept. They are using massage therapy to calm agitated patients rather than using powerful antipsychotic drugs that have a slew of side effect Amid Reform Talk, Alternative Medicine Gets Some Love - Health Blog - WSJ