CGH #048: Where Is The Health In Health Care?

The podcast “Consumer’s Guide To Health” returned to the airwaves in January. This biweekly podcast and live stream airs on BlogTalkRadio every second Thursday at 11:00am central time. Join the discussion!

Episode 48 is entitled “Where Is The Health In Health Care?”.

The dynamics of health care, with cost, access and quality being at the forefront of the discussion, are important not only in the discussion of personal health but in the discussion of national fiscal health.

Promoting health at its most basic level would decrease costs of health care. It would decrease the cost of chronic diseases because we wouldn't have the same incidence of them. It would indirectly improve access to care because there wouldn't be as many people needing ill care.

It would require putting health back into health care. But are we ready to allow ourselves to go there?

All previous episodes of CGH are currently available on my BlogTalkRadio channel. You can subscribe via RSS and the podcasts are also available on iTunes. The next episode will be on Thursday, August 2.

Episode 48 Notes: Where Is The Health In Health Care?

Welcome to the Smart Life Project's "Consumer's Guide To Health" for July 19, 2012. I'm your host, Allan Besselink, coming to you live from Austin, Texas (as I do every other Thursday at 11:00 am central time). This show is brought to you by the Smart Life Project, a health initiative based in Austin, Texas committed to providing sports science solutions for training, rehab, and life. Life is a sport - play smart.

Becoming a consumer of your own health and health care is critical in this day and age. The health care and fitness worlds can be a challenge to negotiate. But we are also in an era of accessibility to information, and as I always say, knowledge is power - if only we'd use it. Let's face it though - the inability to challenge our belief systems in the face of good scientific evidence is the primary limiting factor in the advancement of both health care and coaching, as well as human performance and injury prevention. And as I always say - don't shoot the messenger.

The primary goal of this show is to increase awareness of these issues so that people can become better consumers of their own health - from the grass roots level on up.

With that in mind, our call in number is (347) 843-4753.

Today's episode 48 is entitled "Where Is The Health In Health Care?".

Health care reform has, fortunately I might add, been a pretty hot topic over the past 4 years. The dynamics of health care, with cost, access and quality being at the forefront of the discussion, are important not only in the discussion of personal health but in the discussion of national fiscal health.

When President Obama came into office, the United States was ranked #37 in health care by the World Health Organization.

There are obviously many issues that contribute to the health care system woes in this country. Waste is a huge part of the problem. Back in 2009, it was reported that the health care system wasted between $505 and $850 billion a year. Those numbers are staggering!

But look at some of the areas that it gets wasted:

• 6% with paper-based medical records systems
• 37% on unnecessary care - overutilization of services. That is $200 to $300 billion a year
• 22% on fraudulent Medicare claims, kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services
• 18% on administrative inefficiency
• 11% on medical mistakes
• And, the part that I am leading into: preventable conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes cost $30 billion to $50 billion a year.

60% of all deaths worldwide are attributed to chronic disease - conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Take, for example, the issue of obesity. Over the past three decades the childhood obesity rate has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and adolescents aged 12-19 years, and it has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years. But it gets worse - overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. This increases to 80 percent if one or more parent is overweight or obese.

That's easy money in my world. There is plenty of good science to support simply moving more, eating better - basic stuff. They call it "health" and "health mentorship".

This isn't meant to be a rant on obesity or fitness. I am sure I have had plenty of times to do that thus far. I bring this up because talk is cheap.

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Photo credits: joehardy