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    U.S. Healthcare Crash: your survival kit
    U.S. Healthcare Crash: your survival kit
    U.S. Healthcare Crash: your survival kit
    Ebook139 pages1 hour

    U.S. Healthcare Crash: your survival kit

    By Robert Paul Bacher

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    About this ebook

    FACT: In 1950, the U.S. life expectancy was fifth-best in the world but ranks 42nd today.
    FACT: We are sicker than we were 30 years ago as all chronic diseases and cancers are increasing vs. decreasing.
    FACT: Over 400,000 Americans are actually killed by our health care system every year.
    FACT: The average family of four pays over $18,000/year for health coverage and this figure will double in 10 years.
    The U.S. health care system is a “sick care” focused dysfunctional and failing industry. Our medical approach of treating the symptoms versus the cause of disease is a fatal flaw in the system. Our total annual costs are three times higher than most developed countries in the world at $3.4 trillion. These future costs are unsustainable for our country, businesses, and for us.
    Fortunately, there’s this fact: all chronic diseases are caused by lifestyle changes and are preventable. Solutions exist for you to lower costs, improve health, and increase lifespan. The first step is recognizing you are responsible and accountable for your own health. The next step is changing your lifestyle. This book will give you the knowledge, will and skill to do this in a doable and inexpensive way and help you live a longer, healthier life. Cheers to your health.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Paul Bacher
    Release dateMay 18, 2017
    ISBN9781370381463
    U.S. Healthcare Crash: your survival kit
    Author

    Robert Paul Bacher

    Robert “Bob” Bacher has had a passion for improving our health and well-being for 40 years. Bob is a Chemical Engineer by training and worked for the Eastman Kodak Company. Bob held several leadership positions for Kodak in manufacturing, R&D and several business units as he established systems, processes and practices to positively change behavior and improve the quality of Kodak’s products. After 30 years’ working for Kodak and in upstate New York and his beloved Colorado, Bob retired. He and his wife now live in Delaware. Bob and his wife have two sons and four grandchildren. Bob’s passion for health care prevention has never faltered but the state of our health care system has. Bob has learned over the years that our health has nothing to do with our health care system. Our health is dependent on our choices of lifestyle living. Our health care system is a mess. We have a choice of sitting on the sidelines and watching or to stand up and make a difference. Bob choose to stand up, write a book, create a website and put some processes in place so that you, the reader can benefit. Life is short and to be enjoyed. Don’t sit but stand up!

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      Book preview

      U.S. Healthcare Crash - Robert Paul Bacher

      Disclaimer

      This health information contained in this book is solely for educational purposes and not intended to serve as a replacement of medical advice. Any use of this information is at the reader's own risk. The author specifically disclaims any and all liability arising directly or indirectly from the use or application of any information contained in this book. A health care professional should be consulted regarding your specific situation. If you are taking medications or have health concerns, please consult with your current physician prior to making any of the lifestyle changes or implementing any recommendations mentioned in this book.

      Biography

      Robert Bob Bacher has had a passion for improving our health and well-being for 40 years. Bob is a Chemical Engineer by training and worked for the Eastman Kodak Company. Bob held several leadership positions for Kodak in manufacturing, R&D and several business units as he established systems, processes and practices to positively change behavior and improve the quality of Kodak’s products. After 30 years’ working for Kodak and in upstate New York and his beloved Colorado, Bob retired. He and his wife now live in Delaware. Bob and his wife have two sons and four grandchildren.

      Bob’s passion for health care prevention has never faltered but the state of our health care system has. Bob has learned over the years that our health has nothing to do with our health care system. Our health is dependent on our choices of lifestyle living. Our health care system is a mess. We have a choice of sitting on the sidelines and watching or to stand up and make a difference. Bob choose to stand up, write a book, create a website and put some processes in place so that you, the reader can benefit. Life is short and to be enjoyed. Don’t sit but stand up!

      Introduction

      FACT: In 1950, the U.S. life expectancy was fifth-best in the world but ranks 42nd today.

      FACT: We are sicker than we were 30 years ago as all chronic diseases and cancers are increasing vs. decreasing.

      FACT: Over 400,000 Americans are actually killed by our health care system every year.

      FACT: The average family of four pays over $18,000/year for health coverage and this figure will double in 10 years.

      The U.S. health care system is a sick care focused dysfunctional and failing industry. Our medical approach of treating the symptoms versus the cause of disease is a fatal flaw in the system. Our total annual costs are three times higher than most developed countries in the world at $3.4 trillion. These future costs are unsustainable for our country, businesses, and for us.

      Fortunately, there’s this fact: all chronic diseases are caused by lifestyle changes and are preventable. Solutions exist for you to lower costs, improve health, and increase lifespan. The first step is recognizing you are responsible and accountable for your own health. The next step is changing your lifestyle. This book will give you the knowledge, will and skill to do this in a doable and inexpensive way and help you live a longer, healthier life. Cheers to your health.

      Chapter 1 - The current state of Affairs

      We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility of our future-George Bernard Shaw

      The health care industry is in turmoil and transition. There is horizontal integration occurring where hospitals in most states are merging with other hospitals. In the insurance segment, insurance companies are merging with others: Humana/Aetna and Cigna/Anthem. Also there is vertical integration occurring with the industry. Hospitals are acquiring private practices and insurance companies are acquiring hospital chains in various states. This has been going on for the last 10 years and will continue. This same horizontal integration is occurring in Big Pharma as 60 companies have been reduced to ten.

      In the last 20 years, 30% of the ERs have been closed, mostly in rural areas. It has been forecasted that at least 15% of additional hospitals will close in next 5 years due to mergers, lack of filling beds, high administration costs, and poor quality outcomes. There is also a trend in hospitals sending people home faster (outpatient) instead of keeping them longer (inpatient). According to many sources, the number of hospitals will continue to drop creating a crisis in rural areas.

      There is too much capacity in the system and as inpatients stays and days in hospitals go down, hospitals have no choice to merge and shut down to reduce their costs. This is common in any industry to maximize cost effectiveness. The rise of the mini clinics in Walmart, Walgreens, CVS and others have entered the market which will disrupt the industry and reduce hospital’s revenues.

      All of this activity is consistent with an industry under stress and at the end of its life cycle. All businesses and industries have a life cycle. Once a business or industry cannot provide the right value to its customers for quality and cost, it starts down a decline path. The U.S. health care system is now in an obvious business decline path especially since our health care industry is not competitive for costs and does not have good health outcomes.

      The US has the highest health care costs by far of any developed country. The total costs in 2016 were $3.4 trillion or $10,000 per person. We spend 18% of our GDP on health care in 2016. We pay more than 2X the average of all the EU nations in health care/person. An article in the October, 2015 Commonwealth Fund has some good benchmarking information in it. The U.S. health care system was competitive for costs prior to 1980. Since then our costs have increased as we changed our eating habits and the industry invested more high tech (MRIs, robotics, etc.) solutions. Doctors started prescribing meds at higher rates and our food sources were less nutritious and more toxic.

      Our health care costs have been increasing at rate of 9% per year for two decades. Future cost forecasts from the government indicate a rate of 7%per year (which appears to be low). Big Pharma is rising the fastest at 11%/ per year while hospital costs are increasing at 6-7%/ per year. Our total health care costs are broken down in the following main categories: 31% hospital services; 20% physician services; 10% pharmaceutical; 7% dental; 6% insurance costs/profit; 6% nursing/continued care and the remaining 19% includes several other categories.

      In 2016, a family of four paid $18K for health insurance and $500 to 1000 in out of pocket costs (Kaiser Institute) and by 2025 that cost will double to over $35K. No company can afford that 2025 expected cost. No lower or middle class family can afford that insurance cost. Today the average senior (according to AARP) pays $11,000/year in out of pocket (OOP) costs. This OOP cost is two thirds of their Social Security income. In 8 years, major bankruptcies will occur in all age groups. A projection from our U.S. government on health care costs from today to 2020 states the total costs will be over $6T by 2025. That estimate may be too low.

      An eye-opening chart to Google (US expectancy vs Country Health spending per capita) summarizes it all for value. If we look at our US lifespan from birth and compare our 79 years’ life expectancy to other countries, we should be paying 3- 4X less for health care.

      None of this US health care cost is new or surprising except that the industry, government and media do not discuss it, other than the political aspects of Obamacare. The reality is that our health care system is designed to do exactly what it is doing: be expensive, not be customer or health focused and complex. Obamacare or Trumpcare will have no impact on the rate of our national health cost increase. The drivers of health care costs are increasing sickness, high costs of hospitals and meds, and the fact that the Boomers are sicker (more diseases) and living longer than their parents which will increase the cost.

      Reasons why our costs are high have widely discussed but many of articles miss the fundamental point that the number of sickness or chronic conditions each person has is the main driver of the health care bill. Below is an example of how the number of diseases impacts our health care costs. These costs come from the AARP article entitled, Chronic Conditions among older Americans. A person with no chronic conditions or diseases would cost a person, $1495/year. If a person gets one chronic condition such as high blood pressure (sixty five percent of seniors have hypertension), the health care cost of one condition would be $3994/year. If that same person becomes obese (more than one third of Americans are obese), that would be a second condition. The consequence of that second condition raises his or her health care costs to $5411/year, or about 3X more than no problems. Since 80 percent of obese people develop type 2 diabetes, it is likely that will occur and that third condition brings our individual’s cost to $7382/year, or 5X more than having no problems.Obesity and type 2 diabetes are strongly linked to heart disease which is our fourth chronic condition example and the #1 killer of Americans. The cost of having 4 chronic diseases is now over $10,293/year, almost 7X higher than having no problems. The CDC claims the average senior gets 3-4 chronic conditions in their lifetime. These diseases that I have discussed above are not old age diseases as they all occur in younger adults. All these diseases start in adults often in their 30’s or 40’s and many are not diagnosed until later in life. Type 2 diabetes used to be diagnosed in people in their 60s but now the average age of diagnosis is in a 37 years old adult. The point on health care costs is chronic disease drives the health care system and the number of chronic diseases is the multiplier. The above example demonstrates why our total costs can escalate out of control with the common diseases listed above, all of which are increasing. In this discussion, we have not even referred to the costliest and fastest rising disease, Alzheimer’s (AD). The cost for care of AD is about $50,000/year in the mid stages then it increases to over $100,000/yr. at later stages. Alzheimer’s has no cure.

      I talked with 2 CEOs of hospitals a few years ago, and asked each this question: In a free market economy, what should happen to an industry or business whose costs are 50% higher than the next competitor and offers at best average quality outcomes? Both answered quickly -- Go bankrupt. Since health care is the US largest industry by employment and has major connections with the government, bankruptcy would be complicated, so expect significant government involvement. If the government was not involved, the industry would go bankrupt.

      In summary, our health care costs are unsustainable and the industry will reach the end of its life cycle and be restructured with a significant negative impact on our economy. The only question within the next decade is timing.

      Who is to blame for all this

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