'And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.'

• Environmental barriers to good health such as pollution, chemicals in our foods, food production techniques, and more
• Political barriers to good health such as the politics of stakeholders in the health care system (insurers, politicians, providers) worrying more about themselves than about the greater good of the community
• Financial barriers to good health such as balancing the inability for some to afford high-quality, value-based health care with the human need to give, to earn, to be needed, and to be honored
• Reimbursement barriers to good health such as primary care physicians having to generate 25-30 or more relative value units (as patient services are referred to in the health care world) per day (clearly not based on the good of the patient) and physician practices having to make up financial shortfalls by ordering more and more ancillary services and driving up the cost of care
• Other access related barriers to good health such as cultural, language, education, limited number of high-quality physicians in rural areas, and more

"Dr. Weil's Health Care Call to Action is by no means all inclusive in what is needed in our health reform bill, especially in that it omits the countless oversight issues needed to halt the criminal machinations of insurance co's and big pharma's gouging drug prices. But I think it offers a brilliant start to what is needed regarding the paradigm shift in our treatment modalities from our present allopathic system toward integrative medicine!

"But how do we get from the ugly sausage-making style of disputes now underway in Congress all the way to Congress acknowledging the need for holistic medicine being integrated into primary care!"

"BUT, dream on, how EVER do we get from the ugly sausage-making style of disputes now underway in Congress that presently looks as though the new health care bill may possibly set our real purposes back rather than forward, all the way to Congress acknowledging the need for holistic medicine being integrated into primary care! As long as our elected officials FROM BOTH PARTIES are in the pockets of big biz, our efforts will remain futile.

"I wish that someone like you could keep us all up to date regarding EACH AND EVERY ONE of our reps' and senators':

1) history of campaign contributions from big biz and
2) history of votes on every relevant bill that's come before them.

"I go to my representative's sites and flounder around trying to glean such info, and can seldom get anything relevant. They tell us what they think is politically expedient and omit the rest. It's only when we all have such information at hand that we can really begin to put the pressure on congress with our phone calls and especially with our vote. I'm disappointed to sound so cynical, but I believe that no meaningful health care reform can occur until we do something regarding congressional CORRUPTION REFORM. And the American constituency needs help in making sense of who's really doing what in congress on all fronts relevant to this in order to try to 'clean house' in Washington!

	"I'm disappointed to sound so cynical, but I believe that no meaningful health care reform can occur until we do something regarding congressional CORRUPTION REFORM."

"Certainly the media is not doing much that helps with this, and I know of no grass roots organization who's job is to spoon feed us such 'fact finding' info. I'm forwarding this letter to you to some other great grass roots orgs (plus to President Obama) in hopes that SOME organization might see the need for such data to be compiled and distributed. If such factual data already exists that is relatively easy to retrieve, please let me know."

Mary Klifman