Healthcare in the US

Martin Katz, MD
October 1, 2022

Health is something you CARE about.

Fortunately, I am yet to find a patient or person who does not consider health of paramount importance.

Paradoxically, and not surprisingly for so many, this is not the goal in the current Healthcare paradigm! Health SHOULD be the universal language and purpose of physicians, hospitals, insurance carriers, and care administrators as this is who YOU are paying to provide YOU HEALTHcare! Surprisingly and unfortunately, it is not!

So WE need to make a change. We have to make a change! This juggernaut of disease care management (aka healthcare as it is currently known) may be too big and disastrous to change. So let’s not wait for laws and mandates; it is absolutely up to us, the physicians, the patients, and the entrepreneurs who want to see change and can make it happen. The need to be healthy is middle ground America, where we can all meet and agree that change can and needs to happen. And I believe in you. The current system seems to be systematically removing your hope and possibly your fundamental understanding of what health can be and should embrace.

The system also limits your control. It can be overwhelming if you try to figure out and heal from a diseased state. As big conglomerates and hospital systems buy up practices and smaller hospitals, you will find yourself in a scenario where more procedures, medicines, and diagnostics are mandated and incentivized. As opposed to an understanding of what it is YOU can be doing to improve the situation. There is no time or incentive for education or a discussion of prevention, whether primary or secondary. It is just more, more, more, which makes your protection from these high costs desirable, and therefore the insurance model a necessary expense. So the machine moves on, disregarding any other possible options to assist patients in getting healthier.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times that procedures and tests are necessary, but understand that the majority of the top ten causes of death in America would fit into Preventable disorders. The top two make up almost 50% of deaths. This alarming statistic should make us scream, “Houston, we have a problem!” Heart disease (nearly 700,000 deaths – that’s well more than one death a minute) and Cancer (602,350, still well more than one death a minute) continue to account for many preventable deaths. Despite spending dizzying amounts of money for care and research dollars while looking for that as-of-yet elusive cure, high death rates persist. (1)

Yet, the cure is in our backyard. In other words, we DO have a good amount of control – food, exercise, sleep, hydration, stress control, community, and the microbiome.

Unfortunately, we humans, including physicians, are not educated about ‘how’ the human body operates physiologically and optimally with what is at our fingertips. To the haters, and unfortunately, there are always some, I will grant that there is still a lot we do not understand. Even something as simple as which nutritional approach is best. I would argue there is no ONE particular approach. Still, indeed, an approach best suits YOU, as long as YOU intentionally listen to your body and have a practitioner who understands preventive HEALTH to guide you.

There are just too many studies demonstrating the health utility of these vital health strategies – food, exercise, sleep, hydration, stress control, community, and the microbiome.

So please help me, help YOUrselves in making this transition. There is no more important time to embrace this approach!

In future posts, I will address each of these health approaches to gain perspective on how we can make a difference in our lives and those of our loved ones.

This broken system is part of why I wrote the book “Making a Magnificent You.” I want to guide children to make better choices and to support parents in helping make that change possible. But please understand it is not about reading a book, nodding in acknowledgement, and then putting the book down to sit and watch a show while eating something convenient. It is about making a change, possibly small if this is all you can do. Still, building on that change, making tomorrow better from a YOU health perspective.