EL – A Year without Doctors

“Yes, you DO have great insurance. It’s just that we do not have enough doctors to see all the patients we have” could be a very real problem, very quickly.

In 2018 the Association of American Medical Colleges made the dire prediction that America will have a shortage of 120,000 doctors by 2030. Just when the end of the Baby Boomers will be well entrenched into the Medicare system – there is the strong possibility that there may not be enough doctors to care for this large group of Americans. They state that the American population will increase by 11% by then, and the over 65 population will increase by over 50%.
If we are to look at the current political health care landscape, let’s look at two potential futures: one with a Democratic win, and one with a Trump win.

For arguments sake, I am not pro/anti anyone – I am VERY pro health and whoever can help America be healthier – will get my vote.

If a Dem wins with a Medicare For All – like program, imagine even MORE people into a health care system that will be dramatically lacking in the availability to care for those people, much less be able to address care on a timely basis. We would become Canada in the timing to get an MRI, to see a specialist, and get needed surgeries. Canada has dramatically longer waits for all three of those areas.

If President Trump doubles up and gets a second term – well, let’s be straight, they have no plan on the table as of yet for a comprehensive health care plan – and although we are looking at 10 years down the health care road, what is put down in policy now has a massive impact on what health care looks like in 10 years. More importantly, it has a massive impact on what YOU AND I look like in 10 years.

This next idea can not be pushed aside as it is the ONLY way we can take into count a distinct lack of medical doctors – and the ONLY way to counteract this trend is simply this: we need to NOT NEED medical doctors as much. We, you and I, need to be so healthy that there is no need for us to have as many office visits to have a prescription filled. Yes, you will be able to make an on-line ‘office visit’ to your local med spot and sign in with your fingertip – but someone will still need to evaluate that request.

You and I need to be so much healthier that the need for surgeries goes down. That the need for more and better medications declines. That the need for lifestyle medications to address our lifestyle induced pathologies is no longer needed as we no longer have those health problems. We are healthier.

What other options are there – to have more nurse practitioners, more non-doctors seeing and evaluating patients? That means we will still need 120,000 more of those people.

To truly make a health care system that CARES FOR HEALTH – we must demand more from our system, from our insurance programs, from our doctors that we, you and I don’t want to be treated as a menagerie of symptoms and diseases, but as a human being that wants direction, education, and insight into how we can be independent of medications and surgeries, and able to gracefully kick ass well into our triple digits.

Just as we anticipate changes in energy usage, we must anticipate changes in health are usage.

Be healthy enough to decrease your need for disease care, and increase your need for more health.