Nearly 50 million Americans are currently without health insurance, and many with insurance are still struggling to pay their medical bills. Everyone agrees that healthcare should be accessible to all, but the debate still rages on as to whether a universal system would be a wise or realistic solution. Is universal healthcare the remedy for what ails America?
Health Care Analyst
The data are overwhelmingly clear that an unhealthy society is an unproductive and uncompetitive one. Look at the data on obesity in the US vs. the rest of the world, and its clear that if obesity is a predictor of health status, health status is a predictor of productivity and productivity of competitiveness, then the Japanese and Koreans are going to kick our fat behinds.
Obesity is only one of many issues that can be (partially) addressed by a good health system that is available to everyone, but its an important one. Lifestyle induced chronic illness, like the diabetes and heart disease that comes from obesity, consumes 70 percent of all health care dollars. And modern health management programs are getting better and better at helping people self-manage and become healthier.
So the challenge is finding a financing system that works and, at the same time, to implement approaches that drive out unnecessary, inappropriate and wasteful services, so we can afford it. We’ll also need to find a way to fix America by tearing control of Congress from the grip of special interests.
This is all doable. If you’d like to know more, read the reform section on my site, or contact me directly. But I’ll write about these issues much more in the near future.
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