Here’s the problem in a nutshell: Americans are getting sicker. The “health”care system is broken in so many ways: inefficient, excessive costs that are out of control and a chronic burden to the people it serves.
The medical system in the US is designed to wait for people to get sick and then treat the sickest members of the population.
The medical system in the US is designed to wait for people to get sick and then treat the sickest members of the population. People often feel like they are running around the complicated healthcare maze and find it hard to get the care they need at the time that the need it.
We spend trillions of dollars every year on “health”care, 3.25 Trillion to be exact in 2016. That’s nearly a 6% increase from 2015. Despite all of this spending, The U.S. health-care system remains among the least-efficient in the world. America was 50th out of 55 countries in 2014, according to a Bloomberg index that assesses life expectancy, health-care spending per capita and relative spending as a share of gross domestic product.
Finally, chronic disease is a burden too many are carrying in this country. Chronic diseases and conditions—such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and arthritis—are among the most common, costly, and preventable of all health problems. As of 2012, about half of all adults—117 million people—had one or more chronic health conditions. Chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in our country and account for 7 of the top 10 causes of death.
We spend little time focusing on true health. What does this mean: Not only should we treat those who are very sick, we NEED to focus on keeping healthy people healthy OR keeping people who have mild disease or disability simply from not getting worse. We need to be proactive in our approach- prevent chronic disease and reduce the burden to individuals, families, communities, companies and our nation. We need to focus on how to keep communities and populations as a whole healthy. There is no easy solution. I believe that we need to empower people to champion their own health. We need to educate them where they stand on a health continuum and empower them to make healthy changes that are sustainable.
