– What the Medical Industrial Complex Doesn’t Want You to Know

There’s an old familiar saying for many of us in our 50’s, 60’s and 70’s - one our parents and grandparents often provided as advice when we were making decisions in our youth, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It makes sense. If you don’t want your car to deteriorate rapidly, do preventative maintenance, and avoid the inevitable outcome of a costly repair bill and chronic unreliability of your car. Why is the same advice not followed when it comes to the way governments spends our tax dollars on our health?

Canadian Healthcare Spending Is Out Of Balance – Prevention Vs. Sickcare

In Ontario, for example, government health care spending was $72 Billion in 2009, while the 2010 budget for illness prevention (formally called “Health Promotion”) is $766 Million. That’s 1% on illness prevention, and 99% on illness treatment.  Sure, it costs more to treat someone who’s ill, but does this balance of spending seem right to you? In an economic report released this summer from TD Bank, they estimate that by 2030 70% of all government tax revenue could be going towards health care - up from the current 46%. This would cripple us financially, and it’s the baby boomer generation that would be hardest hit. The report goes on to say, “Ultimately, the most effective way of lowering cost…will be to ensure that fewer people are in need of expensive care.” We can and must do something now.

It’s not all bad news. British Columbia is taking the lead in promoting better lifestyles. The Ministry for Healthy Living & Sport created an ActNow program to proactively encourage healthy lifestyles, including ActNow Seniors, focusing on healthy eating, physical activity, independent living and smoking cessation. This approach is proven to work. Evidence indicates 15% of heart disease, 19% of stroke, 10% of hypertension, 14% of colon cancer, 11% of breast cancer, 16% of Type 2 Diabetes and 18% of osteoporosis can be attributed to physical inactivity. In a consulting report to the government, it’s estimated that reducing inactivity levels by 10% would save the government $49 Million each year. Although the BC government appears to have the right strategy, the financial structure, again, seems to fall short, with $15 Billion in provincial health care spending, and only $56 Million for Healthy Living - it’s still a 99:1 ratio for cure versus prevention.

The Medical Industrial Complex. It’s well known the structure of an activity or business drives a corresponding behaviour. In Ontario, for example, the vast majority of health care spending,  65%, goes to drugs (9%), hospitals (33%) and physicians (23%). It is a multi-billion dollar industry, supported by your tax dollars, that prospers when more people are ill, not healthy (…think about it). It’s a very valid industry from which so much good has come, yet its value is severely diminishing relative to the investment that continues to be made in it, and relative to where the real health concern now lies. Our lifestyle choices and the uncontrolled seepage of over-processed, marginally nutritious food in our diet has created an epidemic of health issues, particularly for boomers, that cannot be cured with drugs or surgery. The current health infrastructure is perfect for addressing acute, life threatening situations (like the need for heart surgery), but creating a culture, an economy and government policy that rewards and promotes good lifestyle choices and better nutrition will prevent more heart attacks than cardiac procedures ever will. Experts suggest that 10 years of promoting and servicing illness prevention could reverse the current negative health trends in North America.

You Control the “Ounce of Prevention”. If big business, and to an extent, big government, control the reigns when you become sick (the “Pound of Cure”), who controls the “Ounce of Prevention” for avoiding illness? That would be you. Your choice to make better lifestyle choices, and to demand your government re-balance its spending away from the Industrial Medical Complex and into illness prevention programs, policies and incentives will  make more people healthy, save money and provide a sustainable health care system for the aged, the boomers and the generations that follow. You have the control - it’s your voice and your choice. Use it to support, maybe demand, an “Ounce of Prevention”.