Today we are changing from the train to an airliner. I do my best 'creative thinking', or perhaps I become a bit delusional at 40,000 feet. Perhaps it is the reduced atmospheric pressure or decrease in oxygen. No matter...it is the end result here that is important rather than the science.
An economic survey, or just reading the news tells us that financial institutions have failed. Our industrial production base has changed, and what was once the bastion of middle class attainment, the automobile companies in the United States have tanked.
As I fly over the United States I see Wall Street in ruin, empty houses, unfinished home construction, and
a hole in the ground where the world trade center used to stand, the midwest where steel factories and other heavy manufacturing plants lay rusting in the cold damp winters, and in the warm humid summers.
We in health care bemoan our sad state of affairs as health care costs have risen seemingly without end and naysayers who say most of our money is 'wasted' with little evidence for better outcomes and better health.
Actual facts dispute this. Evidence and statistics show that mortality has changed. Fewer heart disease deaths, a drop in mortality from infectious diseases, and relatively more deaths from cancer. The increase in death and morbidity from cancers may more be a reflection of increasing survival .
Despite these facts healthcare has now become a major backbone of financial flow....health care provides employment for millions of Americans.
The economicengines of the United States are service industry, healthcare, education, government (at all levels), regulatory agencies,public safety,the judicial system, technology, and communications. ( I leave entertainment as another driving force)
My previous post relates to the merger of health, prevention and entertainment.
Stepping back from all of this I think, what better use of our resources is there than keeping one another healthy. What finer product is there than the human body? What product grows and maintains itself automatically for up to 75 to 85 years?