heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, stroke, those kinds of chronic illnesses. when you get them in your 30's and 40's and you have them into your aging process, you are not going to have a comfortable old age. you are also seeing in terms of epidemics, an increase in alzheimer's and it is going to increase as the population increases. there are quite a few seniors who have mental health problems but they are also, the majority of seniors, who are hard-working, who had minimum wage jobs their whole lives, who paid social security. think about living on $889 a month in the city of san francisco needing to buy medication, one meal a day, hopefully, and health care. if we could provide health care early on we might prevent (inaudible) and people would be less likely to end up in the emergency room with a drastic outcome. we could actually provide prevention and health care to people who had no other way of getting health care, those without insurance, it might be more cost effecti

but such a similar thing can be said for diabetes, for hypertension, cholesterol, for cardiovascular conditions, for almost any medical condition where medication is employed. the medication plays a critical role in the treatment of the disease, but you need other things to help address the condition when you see that, in terms of adherence, compliance, and a healthy lifestyle. well jane, recently we have heard in the news that there is a higher incidence of deaths attributed to methadone. is that the full picture? no. what is actually happening is that in the past few years there has been a shift for pain patients with intractable pain from other drugs to methadone. and they're being prescribed for the most part to 5- and 10-milligram pills which are not used in narcotic treatment programs. and we've seen a large increase in the amount of these pills that are going to market that are being prescribed and being used. but if the patient doesn't understand the dangers of using the pills, using it inappropriately, if the doctor's not prescribing it correctly then there can be serious ad

chocolate for severe hypertension. people take drugs for hypertension.hot chocolate as an adjunct to your blood pressure medication, studies show that when you drink it daily for twoo weeks, if you have severe hypertension, it moderately reduces your blood emperor ush. and every little bit helps. so what you want to do is drink one cup twice a day. that gives you 450 milligrams of flavenol. that is the ingredient in the cocoa that helps keep our artery walls flexible. >> do we have to drink it? can we eat it? is there any reason drinking it is better? >> the study was on hot cocoa. we prefer to go with what the study did. but dark chocolate will have flavonols, as well. two cups of dark hot chocolate give you 450 milligrams. >> meantime, now we think that it's good for rheumatoid arthritis? >> this one the evidence is early based on animal studies. but green tea is so healthy and this is so exciting that we wanted to share it. rats that drank green tea for three weeks daily when they were injegted with a human form of rheumatoid arthritis they were less

and it's as effective for alcohol and drug problems as it is for other chronic illnesses like hypertension or diabetes. but that understanding isn't as widespread as it needs to be. it's getting better, and it's getting better in part because of the kinds of initiatives that partners for recovery, you know, things that the federal government has done. what does it do the local community? how does it work with states? how does it bring people together? well, the partners for recovery program has done a great job of both identifying people in various states and communities who know about these issues, who are key on these issues, and letting the key stakeholders have the tools that they need, whether it's through trainings or information or a web site or other kinds of mechanisms to give them the tools they need to be effective at their local and state level. paul has reminded me of one initiative that took place which samhsa helped support, which were town halls that were held across the country. there are about 1,300 town halls that were held focusing on underage drinking and prevention of

. >> reporter: wu has with who has high cholesterol and hypertense came to the chinatown public healthcentre for care and its director steered him into healthy san francisco. >> now phil knows this is his medical home. he actually cannot go toll another health centre to get care. >> if he needs hospitalization you manage it from here. >> we coordinate with the specialists, we coordinate the care of the emergency room. >> reporter: healthy san francisco was proposed in 2006 by mayor newsome and approved by the city supervisors. >> we're a public plan. we're that public option. and i don't think you noticed anything but the american flag on city hall when you came here. we didn't replace it with the canadian flag. the sky didn't fall. in the world didn't come toon end. >> newsome's plan is not exactly the public option debated in congress. city health director inch katz explained state law requires cities and countys to treat sick people even without payment, even in tough economic times. >> everywhere you go counties and cities are spending money taking care of the uninsured. and certai