I paid $257.52. That’s how much two prescriptions cost me at CVS. Two prescription bottles filled with 28 pills total. For fear of sounding like a cranky 80-something geezer complaining about everything from the clouds being too cloudy, to the way rocks are shaped, that price for medicine is absolutely ludicrous. Because my parents cursed me with Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance, I’m not actually covered for anything at Emory, so I had to pay for all my appointments, prescriptions, and medications out of pocket. Without having my insurance as a liaison between the healthcare institution and myself, I was able to get a glimpse into complicated mess that is America’s healthcare system.
Let’s be honest: we all know that America, in terms of world rankings, isn’t doing so hot -- at least, in the things that matter. Our healthcare, in particular, is abysmal compared to other developed countries. We spend around $10,000 on healthcare per person in the United States, while the average cost of healthcare per person in other developed countries is around $3,000. Despite spending more than three times as much on our citizens, the United State’s health system ranking in the world is 37th, right below Costa Rica and above Slovenia.
If spending was an indicator of how healthy a nation should be, then obviously the United States should be the champion of champions when it comes to healthcare. Our rates of disease, mortality, and disabilities in general say otherwise, however. But why is this the case?
There are many factors and issues that contribute to America’s declining health, such as a large uninsured population, arbitrarily expensive health costs, and over-reliance on prescriptions and medications to treat diseases. However, an issue that has been looming in front of us is that the US health care system focuses too much on diagnostic rather than preventative care. Research has shown that about 70 percent of all diseases and conditions are preventable through lifestyle alterations. However, we tend to focus all of our efforts on treating diseases after they are diagnosed.
A lot of evidence points in the direction that this is not working. More and more people are dying of chronic, largely preventable diseases, and cases of multi-morbidity -- when more than one disease is present -- are becoming more and more common. Reliance on pills and chemicals only fixes part of the problem, as diseases are holistic, affecting the body not only biologically, but also mentally and emotionally. Nearly everything an individual does affects his or her health, from the amount of sleep he or she gets to the amount of stress he or she is under at work.
Other countries have adopted a preventative, predictive health model for their healthcare systems, where patient health is focused on altering and monitoring a patient’s diet and physical health through more non-Western, nontraditional methods. Rather than focusing simply on diagnosis and chemical treatment, doctors in a predictive health system focus also on stress levels, physical and mental therapy, diet, relaxation, and meditation, along with a plethora of other holistic health treatments.
Research in these systems has found that centers focused on predictive health have the greatest success in the fields of chronic pain, gastrointestinal disorders, depression and anxiety, cancer, and stress. These five umbrella issues, if tackled in the United States with predictive health programs, would solve many of the issues our population is facing today.
Predictive and preventative health is an emerging field in the United States that has a promising future and bright evidence to show for it. It’s time for America to make a name for itself in the global health society -- and this time, let’s hope it’s not for anything negative.
