The United States health care system might as well be called a disease care system. In 2007, the U.S. spent an estimated $2.1 trillion on medical care. About 95 cents of every medical-care dollar went to treat a disease after it had already occurred. At least 75 percent of these costs were spent on treating chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes that are preventable or even reversible.
A RAND study estimated almost $81 billion in annual national health expenditure savings due to prevention and disease-management programs. These figures show that it’s important to treat not only problems but underlying causes. The governments current plan to continue to throw money at the problem is much like raising money to pay for ambulances and a hospital at the base of a cliff instead of the smarter choice of building a fence at the top to keep cars from falling off.
Research by the Preventive Medicine Research Institute has shown the body has an extraordinary capacity to heal itself when the underlying causes of illness are addressed. The choices people make each day in what they eat and how they live are among the most important underlying causes. These choices dramatically affect how much an individual spends on health care.
