In this jam-packed hour-long interview, Dr. Kurisko discusses gut health and the importance of a plant-based diet in setting the stage for optimal health. Dr. Bulseiwicz shares some of the newest research related to our gut microbiome and its critical role in preventing cancer and even switching faulty genes on and off. Carnivores beware. Both physicians conclude that while eliminating processed foods from the diet results in short-term gains, long-term, you are setting yourself up for heart disease and more. Meat contains zero fiber, and its role in preventing disease is incontrovertible.

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Dr. Michael Klaper is the Executive Director of MMF (Moving Medicine Forward). He is a distinguished physician, consultant, and educator with over 40 years of clinical experience helping patients regain their health through plant-predominant nutrition and positive lifestyle practices. He is also a long-standing member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

His career highlights include being on staff at the world-famous True North Health Center, which is known for medically supervised fasting and a WFPB diet to achieve weight loss and, in many cases, disease reversal.  

Dr. Klaper has lectured extensively at medical schools across North America, Europe, and Australia. His enlightening presentation, "What I Wish I Learned in Medical School About Nutrition," speaks to medical students about plant-predominant diets’ abilities to prevent and reverse common Western diseases, like hypertension, obesity, Type II diabetes, and many inflammatory states.  

You will not want to miss out on this enlightening conversation with Dr. Lee Kurisko and Dr. Michael Klapper concerning the link between our food, health, and the environment.

Learn all about plant-based nutrition here:
https://moving-medicine-forward-masterclass.teachable.com/p/mmfmasterclass11-1

Our free ebook: Quickstart Guide to a WFPB Lifestyle, can be downloaded here: https://www.kuriskoandco.com/submission

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Lee Kurisko, MD, interviews Brooke Goldner, MD - discussing at length her battle with lupus erythematosus and how she resolved it with a plant-based diet. Dr. Goldner has used her personal experience to transform her practice and to date, has helped thousands of patients reverse and mitigate lupus and other autoimmune disease with individualized plant-based protocols achieving astounding results.  

Please visit her site for one-on-one patient consults: https://www.goodbyelupus.com

As always, Dr. Kurisko and Joyce Kurisko are available for WFPB coaching as well - visit us at https://www.kuriskoandco.com

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Join us as we learn about Jerry's journey toward reversing his type 2 diabetes after failing with medications and a keto diet over the course of 16 years. Hats off to Love.Life | Telehealth for his transformation. You'll learn how he experienced complete resolution of his GERD and more. 

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You don’t want to miss this wide-ranging conversation with perhaps one of today’s foremost experts on healthcare systems.  Health actuary and retired Milliman Principal Mark Litow spoke with Joyce and Gayle about how healthcare systems work, the main disconnects in the US system, and how reform efforts have led to the numerous problems we face today, including poor doctor-patient relationships, unaffordability, generational inequity, workforce challenges, and long term unsustainability.  

Mark leads the Concerned Actuaries Group or CAG (www.concernedactuaries.org), and he went into detail about how CAG has modeled the US healthcare system.  The model focuses on six signals that together form a comprehensive view of the system: cost, coverage, access, health status, economic impacts, and long-term sustainability.  The six signals are modeled across all markets, such as Medicare, large employer group, uninsured, and individual. The idea is to model each mutually exclusive population group based on the type of medical coverage they have, as incentives and behaviors will vary by these groups.  The model projects the results of a reform into the future and compares it to a continuation of today’s healthcare system.  As a powerful testament to the model’s predictive ability, Mark explains how it forecasted a 60% increase in individual insurance premiums after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  Individual market premiums actually increased between 55 and 60%.  The CBO’s model, in contrast, predicted an increase of 10-13%.  

Our conversation touched on the proper role of insurance and the effects when subsidies are too low or too high; Mark mentioned work he did in South Africa, modeling the healthcare system and developing a new insurance plan that was successful until the political winds changed.  Finally, Mark talked about the actuarial profession and how it has changed over his career.  He takes very seriously the obligation of actuaries to speak out if a social insurance program is poorly designed or will have significant negative unintended consequences.  He noted that regulatory filings were a small part of what Milliman actuaries did when he first worked there, but by the end of his career, filings comprised about 2/3 of the work. The political pressure on actuaries to soften or remove assumptions that lead to unfavorable projections about pending legislation and regulations has increased as well.  It is important for actuaries to hold true to our actuarial principles and our responsibility to the public.

We extend a big thanks to Mark for sharing a bit of his knowledge with us today.

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Gayle Brekke, FSA, and Joyce Cheney (aka Kurisko;)) are joined by Dr. Lee Kurisko, a Canadian radiologist who left practice in Thunder Bay, Ontario, to pursue a career stateside after becoming disillusioned with Canada’s centralized approach to healthcare delivery. His firsthand knowledge of waiting lines, physician and staff shortages, and outdated imaging equipment forced a change of heart from the great confidence he initially felt in Canada’s healthcare system. He soon discovered greater efficiency and less rationed care in the U.S. and while our current system is not without challenges, he feels it is far superior to Canada’s system. Canadians, Dr. Kurisko explained, are indoctrinated into the notion that government should provide healthcare and that U.S. citizens are being left in the cold because the government does not directly arrange and pay for all medical treatment. He shares how the Canadian cultural ethos takes considerable pride in the government’s role in healthcare. Indeed, surveys suggest that Canadians remain very proud of their system even though approximately 17 percent lack access to a primary care physician. This ethos is even more puzzling when you consider that in Canada, a primary care referral is needed in order to receive specialty care; those who do not have a primary care physician also do not have access to specialty care in Canada. 

Dr. Kurisko’s move to the United States was in part driven by exhaustion, where he and his two colleagues daily confronted 10 to 14 hours of workload meant for 13 radiologists. He states that because governments are constrained by budgets (vs. profits seen with private enterprise) – it leads to a severe and perverse form of rationing which is not only impractical but immoral as well. The view that healthcare is a right necessarily implies that medical providers’ freedoms can be curtailed; after all, someone must provide the discounted or free service that another person claims a right to receive.

The inherent complexity seen in healthcare pleads the case for bottom-up solutions that lead to less rationed, better quality care. He suggests that because healthcare is so important, it behooves us to consider limiting the role of government. 

Dr. Kurisko advocates for an uninterrupted doctor-patient relationship without arbitrary price controls. He suggests that a better value proposition is possible if we embrace transparent pricing that facilitates the delivery of a desired service – just as we do with other goods and services provided in the United States. In that sense, healthcare is not special. Our conversation touched on “proper” insurance, which only covers large, unexpected losses and preferably is purchased individually and not through an employer. Over-insurance (that is, using insurance for routine, inexpensive care) causes excess testing and other excessive utilization, which of course, contributes to out-of-control spending.  Lastly, he emphasizes the need for supply-side solutions associated with charity care to address our nation's indigent patient population. How to induce or layer such change within our current system, vexed with bureaucracies and vested interests, remains to be seen. But it is a challenge we should not shrink from in light of Medicare insolvency concerns and ever-growing healthcare demand that continues to eat up a larger percentage of our GDP.  At least we have greater clarity on what to avoid as we promote a more bottom-up approach to healthcare reform, thanks to Dr. Kurisko’s insights about the issues confronting Canada's healthcare system.

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A recent study in BMC Medical suggests an increased risk of hip fractures with plant-based diets. Dr. Kurisko analyzes the data and comes to a different conclusion.

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In this 3 part series, Lee Kurisko, MD, discusses the flaws in Dr. Peterson's argument in favor of eating a Carnivore Diet.

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Hello Friends!

Lee and I are so pleased to share this video with you. Soon-to-be Best Selling Author - Rachael Brown discusses her motivation behind *For Fork's Sake* and her family's journey towards a WFPB lifestyle. If you are interested in leaving behind the SAD (standard American diet) in favor of a HAPPY diet for better health and well-being, then you won't want to miss out on this fun, inspiring video podcast. 

Her book is available on Amazon. Visit her site at www.forforkssakebook.com to learn more!

Be sure to sign up for our updates as we launch our website and corporate wellness offering this month!  www.kuriskoandco.com

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Cheers to all things green and good 🥦 💪

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Lee dives deep and discusses Type II Diabetes with an icon in the WFPB movement. Dr. Barnard shares how cheese acts like a narcotic (Yup! There are opioid-like substances in cheese!! That explains my past love for cream cheese) and why it can be challenging to move away from the Standard American Diet. But the challenge is worth it if you want to reverse diabetes and improve your general health overall. 

Dr. Barnard is the current President of the 17,000 plus physician-member non-profit PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine). Their mission: To save and improve human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research.

And their research is daunting, pristine, and life-changing. Lee will touch back on their important research often. 

You can visit PCRM at www.pcrm.org.

Be sure to visit us at www.kuriskoandco.com. We encourage you to reach out to us if you are interested in one-on-one coaching or corporate wellness.😎 💪 

Thanks for listening. Cheers to all things green and good 🥦.

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Lee Kurisko, MD, interviews Dr. Will Tuttle, author of the acclaimed Amazon #1 best-seller The World Peace Diet. Dr. Tuttle explains the impact that diet has not only on health, the environment, and animal welfare but broader social, religious, and philosophical concerns.  

Get your copy of The World Peace diet here: www.worldpeacediet.com

Visit us at www.kuriskoandco.com
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What we are all about - health, wellness, and aspirational aging.

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Dr. Kurisko sits down with Dr. "Riz" from Dallas, TX, a vascular surgeon and proponent of a WFPB lifestyle. His perspective is refreshing, as he witnesses daily the deleterious effects of the Standard American Diet. You don't want to miss this engaging exchange as Dr. Kurisko and Dr. Riz discuss a wide range of nutrition and lifestyle topics. 

Dr. Riz can be found podcasting with his wife, Maya Acosta, on the Healthy Lifestyle Solutions Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCperOshokctearYhcgMmlfQ

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Dr Keith Smith, anesthesiologist, managing partner and co-founder of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma (surgerycenterok.com), and co-founder of the Free Market Medical Association (fmma.org) believes that providing medical care should be a mutually beneficial exchange between the physician and the patient. That’s how transactions work in other sectors of the economy. But being employed by a hospital pits the physician against the patient; they become financial adversaries.  

The Surgery Center of Oklahoma (SCO) offers high quality care for a fraction of the cost of surgery at a hospital.  Prices are bundled and completely transparent.  Their simple successful business model highlights the contrast between thinking of health care as a good or service not unlike any other, and the convoluted and dysfunctional healthcare system dominated by government and large entrenched players such as “non-profit” hospitals and insurance companies.  Dr Smith sheds light on what is wrong in the healthcare system and explains how it is designed to benefit hospitals and insurance companies at the expense of patients and physicians.  We discuss the function of insurance and how our over-reliance on insurance to finance health care adds considerably to health care spending.  Dr Smith leaves us on an optimistic note; he sees that people (both patients and physicians) are increasingly seceding from the government run health care system and seeking out mutually beneficial exchange between physicians and patients.

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Gayle Brekke, Ph.D., FSA, and I join up once again for an interview with David Goldhill - CEO of Sesame Care. If you have not yet read David Goldhill's top-ranked health policy book, "Catastrophic Care - Why Everything We Think We Know About Health Care Is Wrong," then you're missing out on what will likely go down as a must-read for anyone studying health policy.  His recent article in the Washington Post highlights how American Healthcare subsidizes everybody else. It's why many of the single-payer attributes would simply fail if, in fact, the mother ship moved in that direction as well.  Well ho-hum. We are, after all, being corralled down a path of a dialogue that is once again market-focused.  It's actually exciting and refreshing because David Goldhill is center stage. 

BTW - Check out Gayle's new blog focused specifically on Direct Primary Care: Nurturing the Heart of Family Practice

Thanks for joining us!!

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Join Gayle and Joyce as we talk with Deb Gordon, author of The Health Care Consumer’s Manifesto: how to get the most for your money.  Deb’s research starts with the observation that Americans consume health care differently than we consume other goods and services and seeks to understand why.  Deb explained the genesis of her research, which involved a trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore to learn how healthcare consumers in those systems behave.  

Manifesto is full of fascinating insights, including 

• that shopping is a complex process and that many Americans don’t connect the notion of shopping with their healthcare expenditures
• that the American healthcare system is not built around consumers the way other industries are, and this implies that the root of the problems in our healthcare system are deep structural problems
• that empowerment in other economic transactions is bottom-up and a great example of this in healthcare is Direct Primary Care 
•  some areas of healthcare will continue to be a challenge even if we are able to make American healthcare more consumer-focused; one such area is cancer care – cancer patients will continue to need others to advocate for them
• it’s not easy to define quality in healthcare; each patient has their own view and their own values
• Medicare is one of the most consumer-centric areas of American healthcare; seniors have many coverage options, and they have better financial protection than other healthcare consumers
• prices for mental health services are more transparent than other healthcare prices because insurance is less prevalent and many patients pay out of pocket; therapists are motivated to provide value to patients, and naming one’s fee involves declaring one’s worth 
• Deb’s fresh perspective on American healthcare from the consumers’ vantage point provides valuable insights about why we behave differently when purchasing healthcare vs anything else, and these insights offer important clues to what is wrong in our system and how to fix it.  You don’t want to miss this fascinating conversation!
  
  You can find out more about Deb and purchase her book at debgordon.com.

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Dr. John Goodman of the Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research joins us for an insightful conversation on healthcare economics, which he states virtually no one understands because of its complexity and disconnect from normal market forces. He submits that one cannot approach healthcare delivery with supply and demand curves, so instead, he focuses on incentives. Indeed, in his acclaimed 2012  book entitled "Priceless - Curing The Healthcare Crisis," he suggests that our current system begs the wrong question, e.g., "How can I [the provider, hospital administrator, etc] squeeze more money out of the payment formula today?" Clinicians should be asking, "How can I make my service better, less costly, and more accessible to patients today?" And so, his focus is on creating good incentives as a solution to many of the issues we face.  

Dr. Goodman further explains how the suppression of normal market processes has not helped any of us, be it physicians or patients. He suggests that we are really no different from the Canadians or Europeans because we have been enamored by the idea that no one should have to choose between healthcare and other uses of money. Underscoring all of this is the notion that we primarily pay for healthcare with time and not money.  We are, in essence, paying only a fraction of an inflated price since employers or the government typically pick up a majority of the tab either via direct payment for premiums or via subsidies or Medicare, etc. We ultimately have a bureaucratic system in play that not only suppresses pricing information but also creates these non-market barriers to care, such as waiting times and an endless myriad of rules and regulations that impede the delivery of care. 

Gayle Brekke, PhD, and I  discuss the success of telehealth initiatives ushered in under the Trump administration and other efforts to deregulate the industry, which highlight how market forces can fulfill a market need – although it took tremendous political will to make these changes. 

Despite these wins, we must contend with entrenched beliefs and existing stakeholders for whom vested interests often stifle innovation. Indeed, the politics of medicine have constructed a system that mirrors the British National Health Service in many ways. The focus is to spend money on healthy people. In Britain, seeing a physician is quite easy, but if you need diagnostics and specialty services, you will likely encounter long waiting lines and denied care. Here, stateside, we are facing the same pressures. Case in point - ACA plans are not accepted at some of our nation's leading centers, such as the Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, Cleveland Clinic, or UTSW, to name a few. It’s ultimately a race to the bottom. What we largely have for insurance is high deductible Medicaid for the worried well.

Dr. Goodman is concerned that we lack the political will to reform the system, which is unfortunate given some of his ideas on best addressing and financing care for the chronically ill and more. He discusses some of the lessons we can learn from Medicare Advantage plans, which allow for risk adjustment – so physicians actually get paid more per visit with higher acuity patients. He would like to see the role of HSA accounts expand and highlights Medicaid's Cash and Counsel program for the homebound disabled. They are actually given accounts and can choose who will provide their care. It puts control into the hands of the disabled, who are incentivized to use their dollars wisely. The program has a satisfaction rating of 90%. 

As we continue to discuss and think about ways to improve healthcare delivery in the U.S., Dr. Goodman advocates for market solutions, such as Direct Primary Care.

You can order his newest book, "New Way to Care: Social Protections that Put Families First,” by visiting goodmaninstitute.org.

&nb

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In this episode, Dr. Kevin Knopf discusses the challenges of delivering value-based care despite recent advancements in cancer treatment. Complexity in our healthcare model can drive disparate outcomes and price inflation due to competing interests amongst many players.  We discuss the role of insurance and alternate means of financing healthcare to drive efficiency and proper incentives - all of which are essential when thinking about cancer as a catastrophic risk.

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Lee dives deep and discusses Type II Diabetes with an icon in the WFPB movement. Dr. Barnard shares how cheese acts like a narcotic (Yup! There are opioid-like substances in cheese!! That explains my past love for cream cheese) and why it can be challenging to move away from the Standard American Diet. But the challenge is worth it if you want to reverse diabetes and improve your general health overall. 

Dr. Barnard is the current President of the 17,000-plus physician-member non-profit PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine). Their mission: To save and improve human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research.

And their research is daunting, pristine, and life-changing. Lee will touch back on their important research often. 

You can visit PCRM at https://www.pcrm.org.

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Dr. Kashyup Patel is CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Associates. As a Medical Oncologist, Dr. Patel has worked hard to institute care initiatives that foster ease of access for patients suffering from cancer while improving metrics that save time and money. He is a leader within his specialty and has fearlessly tested and implemented alternate payment models. As a patient advocate, he has worked tirelessly to define and create "patient-centered care." His strategic thinking is notable, and this year he takes the helm as President of the Community Oncology Alliance.

Gayle Brekke, Ph.D., and I discuss the challenges unique to patients diagnosed with cancer in the community setting, in addition to the difficulties facing so many clinicians today. Dr. Patel is placing an emphasis on addressing ethnic and racial disparities in cancer care - from diagnostics and precision medicine to enrollment in clinical trials.  His interests run deep and range from healthcare policy and value-based initiatives to advocating for the adoption of biosimilars and more.

He is a person who is deeply fond of his patients, and his warm, kind personality is felt throughout our conversation - all the more reason to champion his cause. In this intimate dialogue, we also discuss his recent book “Between Life and Death: From Despair to Hope,” which chronicles real patients facing end-of-life concerns with compassion, acceptance, and understanding. He shares stories that bring peace and consolation to all of us who have suffered loss from cancer.

We end on a note of optimism as Dr. Patel highlights his driving ambition in life: the glass is always full - even if it contains but a drop of water.

To order "Between Life and Death: From Despair to Hope," click here.

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