What is Real and What is an Illusion?

What is Real and What is an Illusion

Of late I’ve had this tune in my brain that just won’t go away. It’s an old Moody Blues song lyric titled “Late Lament” from the Nights in White Satin album that says “red is gray and yellow white, but we decide what is right, and which is an illusion”. 

What with all the news about health care bills and such, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading lately about health and this song keeps reverberating in my brain. The more I read the more I get this feeling something is not what it seems. 

This post is my simple minded attempt to figure things out a bit.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my country. I feel fortunate to be here. But this health care stuff is messy. My gosh, it seems like it’s been almost 10 years that I’ve been listening to people talk about how some day they were going to make things better health care wise here in the US. 

10 frigging years. Ok, ok, maybe only about 7. 

Yet in less than 120 days of our new billionaire superstar deal-maker's presidency, the first big deal out of the bin failed. Health care in the US will remain as is. Even the repealers couldn’t agree on what was right and what was an illusion. Winning at health care seems to have hit a wall. 

So what’s up.

It just seems to me that we here in the US are a bit of a paradox when it comes to health care. We have one of the most technologically advanced health care systems in the world. We spend more money on health care than any other country in the world on health. Yet our outcomes don’t always stack up to other heavy hitter economy countries. Let me explain by citing a few points from Commonwealth Fund.Org.

“The United States is the highest spender on health care…. the U.S. spent 17.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care in 2013. This was almost 50 percent more than the next-highest spender (France, 11.6% of GDP) and almost double what was spent in the U.K. (8.8%).”

“On several measures of population health, Americans had worse outcomes than their international peers”.

Reference: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective

A few other key points from the article:

•     The US stands out as a top consumer of high tech diagnostic imagining machines. 
•     We were the top consumer of prescription drugs and near the top when it comes to what we pay for drugs. 
•          Procedures like bypass surgery in 2013 was $75,345 in the U.S. This is more than $30,000 higher than in the second-highest country. 
•      Despite spending more on health care, Americans had poor health outcomes, including shorter life expectancy and greater prevalence of chronic conditions.

You know what. I think we are focusing on the wrong thing. It’s an illusion. All this health care stuff is simply a "feel good" illusion. I think the real root cause problem in the US is Life Style and Life Choice’s. 

We pay what we pay for health care not only because of all the high tech equipment and highly sophisticated and educated health care providers. To a much larger degree we pay what we pay because of our life style and unrealistic expectations.

Here are a few stats from World Life Expectancy. These are the top 10 causes of death in the US with their associated deaths per year.

(Ref: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/)

1.	Coronary Heart Disease	393,698
2.	Alzheimers/Dementia	251,745
3.	Lung Cancers	171,504
4.	Lung Disease	154,436
5.	Stroke	133,578
6.	Diabetes Mellitus	71,483
7.	Hypertension	71,304
8.	Colon-Rectum Cancers	62,057
9.	Kidney Disease	59,186
10.	Influenza and Pneumonia	52,287

Think about this a bit. Coronary Heart Disease, Lung Cancer, Stroke, Diabetes, Hypertension, Colon Cancer all caused in large part by what we eat, smoke and drink. And lets not forget the E word. Our lack of exercise.

Now, I’m not writing this to sit up on a pedestal at the front of the room and tell you I’m better than everyone else. Nope. Far from it. I know I drink too much beer. I used to smoke but quit. And I eat cows and chickens and every now and then some fish. And I ride bicycles that weigh 20 lbs out on the road with Texas good ole boys driving 4000# pick ups. So there. 

Oh yea...I drive a F150 pickup myself. :) 

But I am saying, if we want to reduce our health care costs, we might want to go to the mirror and have a frank discussion. No better yet go to the mirror and ask this simple question: What is real? And what is an illusion? 

All of us. Including me.