Health Care: Why We're One Letter Off

We have missed the boat by only one letter in attempting to solve our health care crisis: It's not WHO that should fix it (the HMO's, PPO's, the State, and the Feds) but WHY it fundamentally needs fixing. What is actually broken is the upside-down way we have been looking at this problem. We are trying to fix a costly "reactive" health care system rather than create a cost-saving "proactive" program.

We need to immediately initiate a massive preventative health care program in order to truly stop the bleeding of now over a trillion dollars in health care costs. We must utilize our best technology, peer into our individual futures with the newly mapped human genome, and for the first time easily identify those at risk for known chronic, debilitating, and expensive diseases. We'll then be able to maneuver around them with personalized preventative care plans, based on targeted education, medications, and life-style adjustments. And most importantly, incentivize everyone for good behaviors (what if your insurance company actually paid you for losing weight, joining a gym, or cutting your calories in half?).

Every one of us, starting at birth, would have access to state of the art diagnostics like endoscopies, heart scans, genetic testing, and exposing biomarkers found in our blood and known to be associated with specific diseases. We can already identify who is at risk for diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease, addiction, cancers, and mental illness. Take addiction as an example of what should be done. Less than ½ of 1% of all doctors treat addiction, yet it's the most menacing of health problems, especially in adolescents. In a recent survey of senior medical students, 65 % admitted they felt incapable of treating alcoholism. So the first thing we should do is increase the training of physicians and other health care professionals about this disease. We must educate those at high risk (genetics and environmental cues have been clearly identified to select out those that are vulnerable), address their individual neurochemistry that could potentially drive their addictive behavior, fix that, and monitor their progress until they enter adulthood. The judgment part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) is not fully developed until we are in our early twenties, making adolescence a vulnerable period in anyone's life for making mistakes and creating behaviors that have long-lasting health implications. Identifying adolescents at risk and intervening early is good insurance for a healthier adult, in any chronic disease.

All of this comes at a time when those my age will sit heavily on the health care burden we will all share over the next ten years. Let us pray that someone in the government will vow to "stand on their head" to solve this problem, and finally be able to see the solution from the right direction.

Comments

[MarianneEvans11]

As the article states, we will not see a decrease in costs for some 10 years. I say cut premiums NOW! Cut the cost for procedures NOW! Cut Doctors' fees NOW! Cut hospital costs NOW! Cut drug costs NOW! The executives at the top are getting rich off the American consumer and employers' with group heatlh coverage. The bleeding must stop from all areas NOW! Americasn cannot take it anymore!

[djs111]

If we start using genomes and identifying problems early, we sure as hell better have single payer universal health care.
The insurance companies would LOVE to be able to know who to deny coverage to, from birth.
Given the way they deny insurance, and given the rescission policies they are defiantly sticking with, how can you possible believe it is a good thing to have them be able to identify problems at birth?
This sounds like a private for profit dream!

[exoevolution]

Well said!

Our current so-called Health Care Industry focuses on PROFIT instead of HEALTH!

We need to take the PROFIT out of Health Care & make "our" HEALTH the #1 priority, but that will mean standing up to the greedy, soulless CORPORATIONS that own our elected officials & therefore they own our access to REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM, that can transform our very lives!

[TheBurdicks]

In general, Dr. Kipper is spot on. We are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is a lack of attention to Preventive Medicine, the specific place where cost can be cut the most.
It doesn’t have to be as technical and expensive as what Dr. Kipper emphasizes.
Tests, genomes, medications, and interventions pale in importance in comparison to fundamental, inexpensive public health education. A healthy diet, regular exercise, and stress reduction must be emphasized from pregnancy through birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age.
Any of: 5 pounds of across the board weight loss, 15 minutes of universal regular daily exercise, or a little daily stress reduction for everyone through some sort of meditation, would cut our national expenditure on illness and injury by maybe 25-50%, and at minimal cost.
We are violating a fundamental rule of Quality Improvement in system management. To respond to system failure (illness and injury) is far less efficient than to design Quality (good health) into the system.
We must respond with urgency to the real problem, overweight, poorly nourished, under exercised, over stressed people who will inevitably get sicker faster, and cost us so much more.
Health care in the US is a national disaster, consuming twice as much as other countries, and ranking us number 37 in world health statistics.

[droftim]

Coud this be one reason that countries with single-payer systems spend so much less on healthcare? When every child is covered birth, they have access to whatever their country can offer at each life stage.

[citizensrus]

Good article. You hit the nail on the head! It seems there is less profit to be made by prevention..so it's never set forth as a solution. Yet, it is the solution to catastrophes. And if we don't start taking your advice..regardless of what health care system is implemented ..we are headed for a Katrina.