When I was in college, healthcare costs were 11-12% of gross domestic product. Currently these costs are 18.3% (2021)… remember that healthcare costs inflate and the gross domestic product also keeps growing, but each does not grow at the same rate.
There is no way that our current medical technology (drugs, CT scans, MRIs, cardiac catheterization, stents, ICUs, specialists, and subspecialists) can lower costs… they are too good at revenue generation!
Newer and more elaborate diagnostic and treatment tools are more and more expensive.
We have to fix our personal and public health (ie nutrition, stress, sleep, exercise, a sense of community/belonging, a sense of purpose) so that we can healthfully avoid entering the medical system until late in our lives.
The medical system is way too expensive, even at the primary care level (let alone at the specialist level, and at the inpatient hospitalization level).
According to the US bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare and social assistance industry generated 2.83 trillion in revenue in 2022. This makes it the largest industry in the US when measured by revenue.
Primary prevention is the only health-centric, financially sustainable answer. Primary prevention starts in childhood. Secondary prevention (prevention of additional health issues after you have been diagnosed with heart disease, or hypertension, or with diabetes, or with depression, etc) is just as important.
https://youtu.be/0zzRGvwbil8?si=Zud0vqWtIGo1Yhbw
Charles Tadros MD
October 12, 2023
Saint Louis, Missouri