On Thursday, the federal government closes the letter-of-intent window for MAHA ELEVATE, a $100 million initiative to fund “functional or lifestyle medicine” interventions for Medicare beneficiaries. The stated goal is to test evidence-based approaches to chronic disease prevention alongside conventional care. The unstated risk is that it will open a federal funding pipeline to interventions that sound integrative but can’t survive contact with a plausibility filter.
I’m a palliative care physician. I spend my days managing pain, breathlessness, nausea, and the existential weight of serious illness. My field should be cheering this investment in whole-person care. Instead, I’m watching it with one eye on the evidence and the other on a pattern I’ve seen up close: When uncertainty is high and emotions are higher, sectarian certainty moves in fast.
