GUEST EDITORIAL
The Debate Shaping the Future of Healthcare " A
n ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Benjamin Franklin once said addressing fire safety.
In the nearly three centuries since, his quote has become synonymous with a philosophical battle being waged in modern healthcare: preventing vs. treat- ing sickness. Though little disagreement exists in the statement that “keeping a well person healthy is easier than getting a sick person well,” the clear winner in the on-going debate, at least in terms of which dominates our current system, is the treatment camp. Of the $2.2 trillion spent on healthcare in the United States each year, $1.6 trillion is spent treating consistent examples of poor health; and treatment as the focal point of healthcare has been a catastrophe, as reflected by poor outcomes despite irrational spend- ing.
One of the primary efforts at fire
prevention implemented in the 20th century aimed to install a smoke detector in every house, offering homeowners a warning sign; the strategy has proven
incredibly effective. During that same period, the population has been condi- tioned to ignore the equivalent warning signs in their bodies, treating the symp- toms of fire-like circumstances while re- maining largely unaware of the underly- ing, slow-burning ruin. “When you hear the smoke detector going off, find it, knock it off the ceiling, and move on with your day,” a hypothetical fire prevention seminar sponsored by modern American healthcare might teach. Clearly, health-
care should be following the lead of fire safety, not the other way around. Our current “health” system has its priorities backwards. The number one reason why people eat well in the United States is to lose weight and the leading prompt for restoring previously lost struc- tural balance is chronic pain; being over- weight and in chronic pain are effects of becoming unhealthy, like fires, and proper nutrition and structural realign- ment – items on the list of things we
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Prevention vs. Treatment –
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