What is the biggest failure in modern health? Maybe not what you think?
I recently was monitoring an online forum on the topic “Why is our healthcare system failing us?”
It generated some interesting responses, some of them a bit out in “woo-woo” land.
Here’s a sampling:
- Mega health mergers
- Big data
- Obamacare 2.0
- Private practice doctors trapped in a completely perverted “fee for service” mode.
- Drug corporations feigning concern with health when even they admit health is bad for business.
- Corporate medicine creating disease deliberately with vaccinations and maintaining disease by suppressing true health knowledge and cures that would put them out of business. (There have been reports that this guy was seen on the capital steps last week!).
- The almost religious reliance on antibiotics that replaced ‘barrier’ methods of keeping infections at bay in the last fifty years.
Some legit, some naive, some nuts.
It struck me that it was all about “them, them, them.”
It’s easy to point fingers and say it’s “them” that are failing in our “modern health system” when in fact it may just be US that are keeping it broken – our failure to take charge and accept responsibility for our own health.
When we point, we need to remember we have three fingers pointed back at ourselves.
We can say it’s a busted health care system (which it is) or greedy, profit-driven pharma companies (which they are), or a food industry that doesn’t care about our health (which they don’t). Or we can say I have the option to do a work-around of all that and be responsible for the actions I take that will allow me to avoid being enmeshed in all of that.
Maybe someday we will be honest and admit that it isn’t the failure of a health care system that causes me to take 1/3 of my meals through the side window of my car or cause 25% of the male population in the U.S. to be obese.
Or that pharma has driven me to become one with my voice-activated remote, La-Z-Boy, and Netflix an average of 40+ hours/week.
Or that the health care system has caused me to treat my health care as a reactive $35 co-pay experience when it goes off the rails.
Maybe someday we will just have to admit that we have a magnificent health care system that is supreme at “fixing” and “chasing the horse after it’s left the barn.” That’s the way it grew up over the last 120 years, stamping out diseases, fixing things, drugging and cutting things out.
We really can’t blame it for not being able to spell “prevention”, let alone teach, preach, or practice it.
Consider what would happen to that broken health care system if it taught you and me to be healthy? The entire infrastructure would crumble in a New York minute.
So, let’s stop throwing rocks at our modern health system and hiding behind our own crappy lifestyles. Let’s accept it’s brokenness and work around it.
Wanna change the healthcare system? Get healthy. Think “prevention” not “cure.” If you don’t need fixing, they are out of work, the big expensive machines will rust, scalpel manufacturers will be forced to Plan B, and TV ads will be something other than the latest pill for self-inflicted maladies.
Just saying:
THIS is NOT the fault of a broken healthcare system.
Spot on!
I appreciate your comment, Jeri.
Great article! So true!
Thanks, Kathryn.
Great post as always Gary- I always get a dose of inspiration and reality from your articles! Prevention, and putting some of the responsibility on ourselves, would solve (some of) the issue with healthcare cost (spending) in retirement- estimated at $295,00 on the low end (Fidelity study) to a recent report saying $662,156 (over 23 years in retirement- HealthView Services study). Living healthy and actively and being proactive with our health can also save us many $$$ in retirement too.
Hey, Reid. Good to hear from you. Thanks for you comments and input. Some of these numbers are getting pretty frightening. What is the breaking point? Maybe not in my generation or yours, but something has to give. Keep up the fight, friend!
Another right-on piece Gary man I enjoy reading your brain-busting articles where would I be without you?
Grateful, blessed with health a job, staying active, feeding my mind with e-books. Staying healthy in this economy is a feat and the cost of eating healthy is astronomical so double the effort. As an educator the focus is self-education and prevention eating those “brain”-berries, vegetables and staying healthy without joining a gym. Because I live a “lean” lifestyle minimize stress and pressure increase meditation and think legacy educate younger generations on living a healthy active lifestyle.
Hey Phil. Where would you be without me???? You need to raise the bar friend. Thanks for continuing to read and comment. Keep up the good “lifestyle” work.
Great write-up, I am regular visitor of one’s web site, maintain up the nice operate, and It’s going to be a regular visitor for a long time.
I really appreciate this post. I’ve been looking all over for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You have made my day! Thx again!