Reflect on Health Care Reform

I really want health care reform to succeed. In fact, much of my book, "Your Inner Pharmacy", is dedicated to the necessity of reforming our approach to health care. Clearly, the only way in which health care reform will succeed is for it to bring us better (more efficient and effective) health care in a sustainable manner. Current proposals, however, have primarily focused on expanding our broken system to cover more people, without correcting the underlying faults of our existing broken system.

If we want health care reform to succeed, it is essential to address two critical issues that are nowhere near the forefront of current discussions.
First is the prevailing attitude of American people that somehow our health is the responsibility of our government, our employer, or our insurance provider.
The second is the fact that over seventy-five percent of the dollars spent on health care are for chronic disease, much of which is self-inflicted by our lifestyles. The chronic diseases are not ones that we "catch" or get infected with; they are ones that we develop when the regulatory systems of our bodies become overwhelmed, depleted, and cease their normal function.
A new and realistic way of looking at chronic disease is in order. The first 30 pages of "Your Inner Pharmacy" address this in depth.

Until we deal with these societal and cultural factors that have created our health care crisis, the discussion will continue to be entangled in issues of who is going to pay for the expansion and continuation of a broken system.