Dr. Oz Moves On From 'Oprah' to Everyone

Today's cuppa: iced tea

This week, I did a syndicated piece on the new daytime series "The Dr. Oz Show" (check local listings for date and time in your area). Here's an expanded version for Cuppers...

 

Last Monday, Oprah Winfrey's favorite doctor, Mehmet Oz, began in daily syndication in "The Dr. Oz Show," aiming to bring his high-energy blend of medical and lifestyle advice, bold graphics and audience involvement to more TV viewers.

If current news reports are to be believed, the political debate over how to pay for health care in America should be back up to a fever pitch by fall.

But Dr. Oz - a cardiologist and cardiac surgeon - would like to ask a different question.

"I frankly don't care how you try to get around the health-care financing," he says. "If you don't fix the care-of-health issue, it's not going to make a difference.

"Whichever bill version gets finally cobbled together - I'm hoping it has portable care for all of us as a part of it - but no matter what, to make care affordable long-term for all of us, we're going to have to cost less.

"At the end of the day, you ask the health-care-policy question, the real answer is to make it easy to do the right thing. That's what we have to do in America."

One thing he'd like to see is a different approach to treating people with such chronic conditions as diabetes, cholesterol issues and heart disease.

"That bit of the population costs a lot," he says. "How do you get them help?"

Of course, it all begins with a diagnosis from a doctor, but Dr. Oz doesn't think it should end there but instead should move into a different treatment phase that involves nurses and other healthcare professionals.

"I didn't go to medical school to call you and remind you to walk," he says. "Nurses are good at that. It's a very smart move, and it works ... Once you have your diagnosis - unless it's a diagnosis that requires a lot of tinkering - we put you on a path, pay people to do that, a lot less than you pay them to treat complications, and let them manage it right.

"If we took care of diabetes, the athlerosclerotic complicating factors, just those two, you'd probably whack 15, 20 percent of the health-care budget, just for those two."

Dr. Oz would also like to introduce his TV audience to people who are doing the right thing.

"I really want to make the average American who does it right into a hero," he says. "We bring them on and celebrate what they've been able to accomplish. 'Tell me how you did it, so people can learn. Let's make you a hero. Let's make you a teacher.' "

 

A life of good health starts with the young:

"We've argued that taking care of your health will make you live longer or better, many years down the road. But it doesn't work, because we're all immortal at that age. What we need to talk about is living right now, which is the mantra of the show.

"Live right now is what we're focused on. You should be taking care of yourself, because you'll feel better today ... today."