Health and Healthcare: What are we missing in the definition?

Healthcare has been a major topic of politics and media coverage in the United States for the past few decades even when it should not be. It has become politicized when it must not be.

It’s been accepted that healthcare must be paid for directly by a third-party payer, while it is really being paid for indirectly by the average citizens at much higher cost than if the cost was picked up directly by the patient through open free market.

It does not need to be this way.

During the 1920s, individual hospitals began offering services to individuals on a pre-paid basis, eventually leading to the development of Blue Cross organizations in the 1930s. At the time it seemed like a great option but it was allowed as part of the private competitive market and was downplayed by President Truman in 1930 to be incorporated into social programs.

Since then, lawmakers have made changes and incorporated Medicare and Medicaid to create a “pseudo-socialized medicine,“ putting the government in charge of healthcare in this country. In general, physicians don’t care who pays for the services they deliver nor do patients care how physicians’ care is covered -- as long as optimal and safe healthcare is delivered within their personalized professional doctor-patient contract.

Almost all current problems and challenges in the healthcare system originate from the means of the coverage, due to misperceptions about what healthcare and health are. 

Health is an inherent individual right as we all need to be healthy and live a better life. In order to stay healthy we need to establish a system that will funnel the most up-to-date care utilizing all the available resources (be it technology, strategy and hands-on support) at an affordable cost.

This needs to be implemented reasonably with equal distribution to all, taking into account all the other sociopolitical determinants of the community at every specific point in time.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason--be it intentionally or mistakenly--words like healthcare and health have been used interchangeably too often, and many political and social movements have wrongly claimed that healthcare is a right. 

It’s not a right if it’s at the expense of others, or is paid for by others.

It’s not a right unless there is an advanced legal, social or ethical agreement within a certain society between its constituents to recognize a certain entitlement approved by democratic referendum.

There is a fine line between an entitlement and an individual right, where the latter is validated based on liberty.

I believe no matter what we choose as the vehicle for better healthcare, we need to ensure that our constitution, the market, business models and medical ethics are in synchrony and compatible with one another. For example, a single-payer system requires a populistic approach where government is a true populist. But in order to do that, elected legislators must control and enforce every aspect of the healthcare system without any influence from private entities.

Healthcare is a business and will always be a business in the United States. This differentiates us from some European systems, where they have a more collective approach to everyday solutions without corporate lobbying influence.

Making the best of the system we have today is always the most efficient way to ensure a quality healthcare delivery for all. But we have come a bit too far off our path and there is no fast way to getting back on the trail. Slow transition has become the preferred way. Here are some priorities:

• Expand state Medicaid programs to include the elderly taking over Medicare cases
• Ensure optimal state management of Medicaid program with high-level federal government oversight and support
• Ensure equal opportunity to direct-pay clinics
• Dissolve Medicare program
• Ensure high-level federal government enforcement of patients ability to purchase coverage across stare lines 
• Close lobbying loopholes for corporate entities
• Promote physician-run private entities to compete for healthcare projects
• Promote local optional healthcare foundations to ensure free open market but ensure patient safety and regulations strictly
• Place patients in control of their own health information
• Empower independent physicians via physician-validated technology, strategy and hands-on support.
• Optimize the point-of-care system and improve on Telemedicine so it will address current technical challenges of virtual clinic visits