I’m giving my subscribers the opportunity to read and comment on my upcoming book. I first wrote it about 15 years ago. I have been encouraged to republish it. I know it needs to be updated, feel free to comment. The following is the preface.
Societal evolution over the last 200 years has changed many ways we think and behave. Our health care system has also evolved over the last 200 years. While an undergraduate student in the mid-1970s, I wrote a paper on health maintenance organizations. At that time, it was a little-known concept and most people talked about medical care not health care.
Today our politicians are talking about access to health care. By that they mean having an insurance policy. It galls me to hear that access to health care is no longer about whether a sick person can get in to see a doctor but merely whether the person has insurance. Politicians don’t seem to understand that people can be financially bled with insurance premiums to the point that they can’t afford the deductibles and co-pays. They can’t see a doctor, even though by the politicians’ standards they have health care.
While writing this book I realized that I actually have two points. One point is that health care costs are going up because government intervention has limited supply while encouraging demand and favored insurance, corporate hospitals, and drug companies over private citizens, this book. The second point is that health care costs are going up based on a false philosophy of science of life. The second point is covered in the companion book, Health Science - The “Science” of Medicine and the Dollars It Generates.
It is my hope that the two books will contribute to the debate about our health care system. I encourage us to place removing the impediments to health ahead of corporate welfare, whether the corporation is an insurance company, corporate hospital, or pharmaceutical company.