UPDATED: February 5, 2025
Welcome to the Healthy Living Is Good Medicine Newsletter, a free publication covering a wide variety of health-related topics, with timely original articles intended to help people lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.
Everyone should have access to high-quality health care and reliable health information, regardless of their ability to pay. This free newsletter is my small contribution toward making that possible.
What’s Wrong with These Pictures?
America spends more of its GDP on health care than any other country, but we're certainly not the healthiest country in the world, not by most measures. The 2024 Commonwealth Fund report compared the U.S. to nine other developed nations, and our country ranked last in the performance of its healthcare system. Parameter included access to healthcare, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and health outcomes. The U.S. also finished last on specific dimensions of health outcomes, such as life expectancy and reduction in preventable deaths.
Why Americans Aren’t Healthier
America’s profit-driven healthcare system is inherently harmful, because it prioritizes corporate wealth over patient health. The formula for the system’s financial success involves extracting as much money as possible from patients, while exploiting the good intentions of their healthcare providers. This has resulted in widespread harms, which include depriving patients of necessary medical care and inflicting moral injuries on providers.
It's hard to say when Americans were at their healthiest, but some historians point to the middle of the 20th century, which saw a significant decline in infectious diseases due to advancements in public health, sanitation, vaccination, and antibiotics. People were generally more physically active due to manual labor and outdoor activities, and less time spent sitting at desks at work, or on the couch watching TV. Foods were often fresh and less processed, and people were more reliant on home-cooked meals. Local family-run farms produced crops and raised animals using fewer chemicals.
Currently, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of healthy eating, exercise, and preventive healthcare. Major advancements in medical technology have led to more accurate diagnosis and more effective treatments. However, our citizens’ health has declined in recent decades, and now lags behind the health of people living in other developed nations on a number of important metrics.
The increased consumption of ultra-processed and fast foods, and sugary drinks contribute to obesity and related metabolic problems. More sedentary lifestyles and the stresses of modern life have resulted in more mental health issues and physical ailments. Tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs remain a significant health risk. That’s true, regardless of where people live. However, preventive services and access to affordable healthcare are clearly superior in countries with a not-for-profit, nationalized healthcare system.
A new study of British adults in their 30s and 40s found that they are faring much better than their American counterparts, especially when it comes to cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. The differences are mainly due to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) emphasizing preventive medicine. The founding principles of the NHS are that “services should be comprehensive, universal, and free at the point of delivery… based on clinical need, not ability to pay.”
My commitment to optimizing personal and public health is what makes me a harsh critic of America’s for-profit healthcare system, big Pharma’s price-gouging, and a private health insurance industry that enriches itself by exploiting both patients and healthcare providers. Our ruthlessly capitalistic economic system prioritizes corporate wealth over people’s health. The human casualties that result from maximizing profits are unacceptable.
Making American Healthcare More Affordable and Accessible
The private health insurance industry is driving up healthcare costs, ripping-off patients, and cheating healthcare providers. The 2018 tax cuts given insurance companies and other large corporations further shift America’s taxation burden to the middle class.
The Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), now under GOP threat, was an important step in addressing those problems. So are the price caps on some prescription drugs, set in motion by the Biden Administration, but much more must be done. There is already an excellent blueprint for a healthcare system appropriate for the 21st century. Our government has not been interested in implementing it, while other nations already have.
Must we stand by helplessly while the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class desperately tries to hang on to what they have? Never underestimate the power of class-action lawsuits to bring about changes that legislatures are loath to make, because insurance companies are major political campaign contributors.
Congress needs to enact “Medicare for All” and move H.R.3421, the Medicare for All Act, forward. It is up to our government to take control of constantly rising healthcare costs, which includes placing price controls on prescription drugs. Hospitals need to become non-profit entities, instead of profit centers for hedge funds and private equity firms. There also need to be national standards to patient care quality and to ensure its availability. Here are the arguments for universal healthcare as a human right:
Medicare Disadvantage Plans
I hope that those of you who have enrolled in “Original Medicare” stay with it, and those of you who are newly eligible choose it. Please don’t get suckered by the many so-called “Medicare Advantage” plans that are heavily advertised on TV and in other media aimed at seniors, such as the AARP’s publications. Ads abound during the open enrollment period in the Fall.
Original Medicare health insurance, provided by the U.S. government, can be used to pay for healthcare services almost everywhere. The Medicare Advantage plans are offered by private, for-profit companies. With the competing private plans, you can only obtain services from specific providers, which can make getting care difficult. Delays and denials are frequent tactics used by the health insurance industry.
The only advantage with those private insurance plans is that they generate big profits for the companies that are selling them. The advantage plans promise more benefits at a lower cost, but they actually deliver less of what is actually needed than Original Medicare.
Looking Toward the Future
What the outcome of America’s 2024 election means for public health and preventive medicine remains to be seen, but the current outlook is not rosy. With unqualified, anti-science and anti-vaccine sycophants in leadership positions, we the people will need to fight for science-based medicine and be proactive in protecting our own health, despite diminished federal support.
Sharing what I've learned about optimizing health and preventing illness is part of my legacy. I hope that the things I’ve written will encourage people to take better care of themselves and their loved ones. Ideally, people will want to become as healthy as possible, and reduce their dependence upon our seriously flawed healthcare system.
I’m not the only physician who is dissatisfied with a money-making system that’s manipulated by hedge funds and profits from exploiting healthcare providers and shortchanging patients. The doctors and nurses who bravely endured the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic are now dealing the fear and anger of frustrated patients and experiencing increasing rates of workplace violence. It’s no wonder that they are leaving their professions in record numbers, producing provider shortages in many areas.
With longer waits for appointments and reduced access to specialists, patients will need to be well informed so they can monitor the quality of their healthcare and productively collaborate with their providers. Being a knowledgable healthcare consumer has never been more important. It is my hope that the information I provide in my articles will be of assistance.
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