OUR VIEW: Health care is missing its foundational mark

“The secret to success is find a need and fill it; find a hurt and heal it; find a problem and solve it.”

— Robert H. Schuller

Henry Kaiser, a WW2 industrialist from California, often spoke similar inspiring words as he rose to develop Kaiser Permanence, the largest managed health system in the U.S.

U.S. health care has grown into big business but it raises serious questions that demand answers. Have we deviated from this “meet needs and heal hurts” mission? Have we been successful with evidence-based solutions for the country’s poor health? According to recent Indiana Capital Chronicle reports, Indiana’s health care may need further diagnostic evaluation to treat what ails it.

Historically, Kentuckiana health “system” for the sick began with passionate doctors and nurses partnering with small, church-run hospitals like Norton’s Methodist and Baptist’s Floyd. These became today’s medical centers and specialty clinics.

President John Adam’s first public health initiative was the “Marine Hospital Service Act” of 1798, offering care to ill and injured mariners. Government funding aided in the prevention and spread of contagious diseases by our sailors. Two hundred years of war and epidemics evolved that first initiative into what is currently known as the Center for Disease Control. (CDC)

In 1965, President Johnson established a public health insurance program for our most vulnerable populations – children, seniors, disabled and the poor. Run by the HHS and known as Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), it has bloated to $1.5 Trillion/year for programs covering 170 million Americans. Two dozen Congressional committees oversee it while private, commercial health insurance companies became fiduciaries, driving this health care industrial complex. Trillions more pour through red-taped, revenue-producing corporations who attach the word “care” onto health policymaking.

How did we arrive at a place where public and private entities can mismanage or siphon huge profits while dictating what doctors we see, what tests we need and what treatments we get?

Why hasn’t the richest country in the world found a way to heal hurts with viable, long-term solutions? We incentivize providers and insurance company executives while our family doctors wonder how they’ll simultaneously meet daily patient quotas and effectively diagnose and treat the sick.

Despite medical advances, in 2018, on average Indiana residents had 0.5% less years in life expectancy than in 2012. There’s rising young adult mortality, Hoosier obesity ranks 8th in the nation while a BMI >30 significantly increases cancer risk. These sobering facts alone should challenge elected officials if they really wish to make America healthy again.

Those enrolled in certain insurance plans say they’re put on pause as doctors swim in a sea of paperwork and the game of “delay/deny” claims is played. Are insurers hoping a clinician cries “uncle,” resulting in canceled tests or less effective prescription drugs?

Solutions shouldn’t be held hostage by weighted politics as federal and state programs flounder in regulatory mud. If successful outcomes produce healthy Americans, let’s start with Indiana legislators and our governor demanding to know what went wrong with Indiana Medicaid, explain the $1B shortfall problem to the public in terms we understand and then fix it without jeopardizing Hoosiers in real need.

Maybe, just maybe, we can actually heal the hurts that beset us.

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