by Eric Brand

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being invited to China Medical University (CMU) in Taiwan on the day that they were hosting a whole team of US Congressional Chiefs-of-Staff. I owe the honor to my friend Gabriel Fuentes; Gabe is a US acupuncturist and a PhD student at CMU with a gift for making great contacts. Essentially, the US Congressional team was touring Taiwan in the process of investigating healthcare reform.

Taiwan has a very advanced healthcare system that provides universal coverage for local citizens and foreign workers. It covers Chinese medicine, biomedicine, dentistry, etc., and it is generally a great system because it provides extremely affordable and generally high-quality medical care. While not without its flaws, Taiwan’s system is very cost-effective for the government and it works out great for the general population. Taiwan’s system stands out in the world of global healthcare, so the US Congressional staff was out there to see what lessons could be learned from the Taiwanese setup.

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On the day that we were there together, CMU was giving the Congressional staff a tour of the Chinese medicine division of their teaching hospital. Most of the chiefs-of-staff had never seen cupping, moxibustion, or acupuncture before, so they got to see a demonstration of all of the various techniques. They also got a tour of the herbal pharmacy, which is a huge room with raw herbs (overheard: "gecko is TCM viagra") and thousands of bottles of granules (overheard: "cannabis seed?"). Afterwards, we adjourned to a meeting room for a presentation of the school and stats on their healthcare system and hospital management.

Like any good meeting in Chinese society, we followed up the long day of touring with a stellar meal. The president of the university took us all out to the nicest restaurant in Taichung for a truly VIP meal. We had a top-floor private suite for the meal; it was a beautiful setting with sumptuous dishes, great conversations, and it offered me an interesting chance to gain insight into the world of Washington bigwigs. Fortunately, I am a seasoned and intrepid explorer when it comes to formal Chinese banqueting, so I know all the etiquette around toasting and I fear virtually nothing in the animal, vegetable, or fungal kingdoms (this is good because a formal Chinese banquet often has a stunning variety of creatures and vegetation from both land and sea, and having a broad palate gives one good face).

Naturally, I asked the question that any of us would ask in that setting: “Is there any discussion of integrating acupuncture into US healthcare in the context of Obama’s health plan?” I’m sorry to say that the answer I received was neither definitive nor completely encouraging. The reply was: “At this point, we don’t even know whether an ambulance will be covered if you have a heart attack, who knows what will happen with acupuncture.” This was several weeks ago when the healthcare debate was roiling with turmoil, so perhaps things are more clear now that the bills are actually moving through Congress.

That particular day made me feel lucky to speak Chinese. Knowing the Chinese language opens up an amazing amount of doors, and understanding how to navigate Chinese culture allows one to make lots of excellent contacts. While I personally don’t have much interest in dealing with Washington, I am the Co-Chair of International Affairs for the AAAOM, and the AAAOM has been working hard to lobby for greater recognition of acupuncture in Washington. I came home with the business cards and a personal relationship with about a dozen chiefs-of-staff for various members of Congress, so I am sending all these contacts on to AAAOM’s lobbyist for follow up.

Hopefully these contacts will be useful for the lobbying pros that are working with AAAOM. The AAAOM works hard to advance our profession, and I’m behind their efforts every step of the way. One never knows which contact will turn into a key ally in the future, so I was happy to have the chance to rub elbows with the bigwigs and pass their info on to our professional organization. Ordinarily I’d prefer not to have to wear a full suit around campus on a hot tropical day, but I must say that the tasty duck that those Congress people were served made it all worthwhile.