Ferrari vs Honda Health Care

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

What then should we do? The best democratic option is to replace both the Ferrari and the jalopy with a Honda. The post-peak Honda health-care model will of necessity operate with fewer overall resources and less energy than today's health-care system, and at lower cost. But it need not result in poorer quality of care.

Although the United States spends more on health than any other nation -- per capita health-care costs in this country are three times those in Great Britain and more than twice those in Canada -- we do not have the best health outcomes. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006, for example, reported that "white, middle-aged Americans -- even those who are rich -- are far less healthy than their peers in England."

The commonsensical Honda model will emphasize public health -- the prevention of disease and the promotion of health within the population as a whole -- over treatment medicine, which focuses on restoring health to chronically or acutely ill individuals.

Typically accomplished through the diffusion of information, low-cost therapies, and the promotion of healthful nutrition and lifestyle, preventive medicine allows people to avoid or postpone disease, and to stay clear of the costliest and most energy-intensive sectors of the medical system -- doctors' offices, pharmacies, and the hospital. In the Honda model, treatment medicine would continue, but its role would be brought into better balance with the vastly more cost-effective and energy-efficient mode of preventive health care.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/57525/?page=2

A very artful argument for how UHC leadsto better care at lower cost.