Some people think the growth of healthcare is a good thing for the United States economy. In fact, it is a tremendous burden. Let me provide a simple explanation that most can relate to. Is it a good thing for healthcare costs to grow as a percentage of your family budget? Of course not, because every dollar you spend on healthcare is one less you have to spend on things you really want. Likewise, at the national level, healthcare’s growth as a percentage of the economy is draining the resources of other industries we would rather foster, such as education and construction.
It is best for our economy to keep healthcare small, because healthcare is what I classify as a negative industry. A negative industry is one that corrects errors, solves problems, and fixes things when they go wrong. It takes bad situations and makes them neutral. In short, a negative industry is one that would not exist in a perfect world. This includes healthcare, law enforcement, social services, and armed forces, among others.
A positive industry is one that creates something of value. It turns neutral situations into positive ones. Examples are agriculture, transportation, textiles, and communications, to name a few.
Negative industries are not bad themselves. They are equally important to society as positive industries. However, our goal should be to reduce the size of negative industries, while ensuring they are still able to accomplish their purposes. This makes more resources available to positive industries so they can create the goods and services we really want to spend our money on.
From Negative to Positive
America’s healthcare system is fundamentally flawed. And society is so dependent on its services that it is pouring massive resources into healthcare just to keep it functioning. The obvious solution is to reform healthcare so it can function better than it does now with far less resources.
In this article, though, I want to go beyond the issue of healthcare reform and share my vision. In society today in America, we are too focused on preserving what we already have and protecting ourselves from fears, real and imagined. We should be more focused on growth, advancement, and improvement.
What this means for healthcare is that we can fix the system. More than that, we can reform the practice of medicine so that all conditions are treatable. How will we do this? By systematically categorizing the various but limited causes of illness and injury, and then logically, rationally, and reasonably analyzing treatment options, while placing value on creativity and having one goal in mind – results. We have the talent and technology to do this; it is medicine’s bad ideas and philosophies that stand in the way.
My ultimate objective is to turn healthcare into a positive industry by inventing protocols and procedures that enhance the mental and physical performance of already healthy individuals. Your annual checkup will become a comprehensive diagnostic process to look for ways to improve energy levels, mental clarity, flexibility, even appearance.
Again, we have the ability to do this; it is just not a part of medicine’s culture. Lasik surgery is an example of this type of treatment, because it can give people with good 20/20 vision even better eyesight. With a focus on nutrition, hormone levels, the musculoskeletal system, habits and health practices, this approach offers a lot of promise for improving Americans’ quality of life.
Growth in this part of healthcare will not take from our economy, it will add in the form of healthier workers and products and services we can export overseas. Economic growth is not certain; it happens only when we add something new and valuable. We await a revolution in medicine on the scale of the industrial and technological revolutions that preceded it.
Alexander Typaldos, JD