Health Care or Sick Care?

With such a rapid increase in the incidence of chronic conditions the overarching focus of our health care system has been to aggressively treat the symptoms of each illness rather than treat the root cause.  For instance, we have the brilliant technology of coronary bypass surgery, angiograms and stent placement after a heart attack, we can place a person on dialysis after kidney failure and we can cut cancerous tumors out to save thousands of lives.  The health care system in America has mastered the art of saving lives by treating the full blown chronic illness over and over again many times treating the same person for the same set of symptoms three and four times over the course of their lifetime.  This is called secondary and tertiary prevention, which entails waiting for the chronic illness to fully develop before a patient presents at the medical office for treatment.  Many people can rightly argue that, traditionally speaking, America has had the best “health care” system in the world, but many experts are questioning the use of the term “health care”.  With such focus and amazing technology put into secondary prevention many experts believe that rather than having the best health care system in the world we have the best “sick care” system in the world.  A model that places such emphasis on waiting till a person is sick to address their health status rather than focusing on the lifestyle behavioral patterns that caused the illness in the first place is definitely better suited for the name “sick care” rather than the name “health care”.  The statistics support this methodology as 86 % of all “health care” spending in 2010 was for patients with one of more chronic medical conditions (3).  A spending breakdown from selected years for the treatment and or impact in the work place of chronic illnesses is detailed below:

• $ 315.4 Billion on heart disease and stroke (2010)
• $ 157 Billion on cancer care  (2010)
• $245 Billion on diabetes (2010)
• $147 Billion on arthritis (2003)
• $ 147 Billion on obesity related medical costs (2008)
• $ 223.5 Billion  on alcohol abuse (2006)

It is reported that while America has less than 5 % of the world’s population it consumes more than 75 % of the world’s prescription drugs. (6). Americans also consume more than 80 % of all opioid (the same substance in heroin) pain killers and 99 % of all hydrocodone in the world (7).  In 2012 medical professionals wrote 259 million opioid prescriptions, which is enough for every American adult to have a bottle (8).  These statistics are fiercely astounding and perhaps best explain just how broken our “health care” system and culture really are.  Our nation is the sickest it has ever been with regard to the types and incidences of chronic diseases experienced and it’s getting sicker by the day all while in a society that is spending billions and billions of dollars for treatment and with the most consumption of “medicine” (pharmaceutical drugs) the world has ever seen.  We are in a health and wellness crisis and the current system of management is epidemically failing.