Ep 6: Dr. Joe Leonardi: a discussion on everything under the sun, but not the kitchen sink!

Summary: On today's episode of the Dr. O show, I'm very pleased to interview Dr. Joe Leonardi. Many of you who listen to Jimmy Moore's podcasts will know Dr. Leonardi as a frequent and entertaining guest. In the past,  he happened to review one of my blog posts for an episode of Jimmy's "Low-carb Conversations." And so when I started my podcast, I wanted to make sure that I invited Dr. Leonardi on my show so he could talk a little bit about his particular interests in the field of health and wellness. Dr. Leonardi is a chiropractor from Pennsylvania has done a lot of different things in his life, as we will talk about. He has run for Congress, written books about health and wellness as well as politics, is very into physical culture, and lost over 100 pounds himself. He's taken all of these experiences, and brought them back into the realm of patient care. We talk about this and much more on today's episode of the Dr. O show, including some discussion about healthcare politics, and what people need to know going forward in regards to the current health care system. I've said this before and I will say this again, I do not think that Obama care will deliver on the results that it promises. Living in Illinois, the bureaucracy that is in place to help provide government health care is a complete disaster on many levels for both the doctors and the patients. I cannot see how this can be taken to a national level and made better without addressing the significant problems that are occurring in the state level with inefficiency and fraud. But on a deeper level,  we have significant problems in the underlying philosophies of how healthcare is delivered in this country. And that I think is a much more significant problem. The foundation upon which our healthcare system is built leads to overutilization of drugs and technologies.  And a great deal of it, has to do with the general public's perception that drugs and technology (and more importantly, the idea that more drugs and more technology) will provide better healthcare. It doesn't.  This is something that is noted by advocates of Obama care, and I completely agree with him in this regard.  It is a faulty premise that more healthcare is better healthcare; however, the idea persists because many of the incentives in healthcare are aligned towards utilization of drugs and technology, and they are often directed by forces outside the doctor-patient relationship. People who support Obama care, as I said, realize this, but they have provided a solution which I totally  disagree with. Instead of attempting to reestablish a doctor-patient relationship which incentivizes prevention, accountability, transparency of pricing, and the free indirect exchange of information, they have instead proposed a government solution, which I feel only adds to the problem. Our current health care system has already reduced the autonomy of doctors in the decision-making process for their patients, because they are influenced and sometimes even pressured by interests other than care of their patients. This creates an untenable situation for most doctors. Rather than helping direct patient care on an individual basis using the best scientific information available, more and more doctors are being placed in the position of following a protocol or an algorithm. It is a complex problem because if something works when it's done a certain way,  it should be done that way, especially of scientific evidence supports it.  However, as many of you know already, science, because it's inferences and conclusions are made by people, is hardly infallible. And likewise, the practice of medicine itself on an individual basis is often very different than what the science says. It is clear to any practicing physician, that even though a scientific article may say that a certain drug promotes a certain outcome, there will always be a few patients where the drug promotes either no outcome or the exact opposite outcome.