Bill Clinton on health care and wellness

We read a good arti­cle on med­ical salaries recent­ly, and are hap­py to see an increased empha­sis pre­ven­tion and well­ness rather than on sickness.

Along these lines, we were for­tu­nate to attend Heal­thetc yes­ter­day, a day-long health event in San Fran­cis­co co-orga­nized by KCBS and CPMC that had Bill Clin­ton as keynote speak­er. You can read an arti­cle on his great inter­ven­tion here.

Some of the speech highlights:

1) Clin­ton’s great overview of key data:

  • 16 vs 10–11: % GDP spent on health care in the US vs. oth­er indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries. This per­cent­age dif­fer­ence equals around $800 bil­lion annually
  • 84 vs 100: % pop­u­la­tion with some form of health insur­ance in the US vs. oth­er countries
  • 34 and 37: rank­ing of the US sys­tem as mea­sured by health out­comes and life expectan­cy, respectively
  • 34 vs 19: % health care costs spent on admin­is­tra­tion in the US vs. oth­er countries

2) He out­lined the 3 main prob­lems with US Health­care as fol­lows-and empathized that any seri­ous, long-term solu­tion needs to address these 3 ele­ments as a whole:

  • immoral unequal coverage
  • inef­fi­cient sys­tem: we pay more for less
  • we still focus more on dis­ease than on health. But he is hope­ful about an increas­ing focus on well­ness, absolute­ly nec­es­sary to alle­vi­ate future cost pressures

3) A cou­ple of (aprox­i­mate) quotes with pro­found wisdom

  • I am a tes­ti­mo­ni­al for the best of Amer­i­can med­i­cine. Giv­en my heart prob­lems, it is a mir­a­cle I am here with you today. These days I can­not stay more than 5 min­utes in a bad mood, because I remind myself how for­tu­nate I am sim­ply to be alive”
  • (when peo­ple were clap­ping and cheer­ing to easy “sound bites” while he was still try­ing to make a com­plex point) “Please stop. I don’t want you to boo or cheer, sim­ply to think on your own”

In the after­noon we spent some time talk­ing with exhibitors at the Expo and attend­ing some pan­els, such as the one put togeth­er by the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion. We were sur­prised at the amount of edu­ca­tion still need­ed to make the med­ical and health com­mu­ni­ty incor­po­rate sci­ence-based advice on life­long learn­ing and men­tal stim­u­la­tion on top of “tra­di­tion­al” advice around nutri­tion and phys­i­cal exer­cise. The Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion is being one of the pio­neers with their “Main­tain Your Brain” cam­paign-we are doing our best to con­tribute to the effort with arti­cles such as Easy Steps to Improve Your Brain Health Now.

3 Comments

  1. therapydoc on April 15, 2007 at 7:01

    Amaz­ing that Bill and I have this in com­mon. Who knew he’d be such a relativist?

    Ther­a­py­Doc, Lin­da Freedman



  2. Alvaro on April 15, 2007 at 9:37

    I was very impressed when he said that. Pret­ty nice atti­tude to have!



  3. amanda on April 30, 2007 at 1:15

    awe­some!!! I am impressed by Clin­ton’s cajones in address­ing a nation­al cri­sis. Health care is sim­ply drag­ging our coun­try down, our econ­o­my, our free­doms, and our sol­i­dar­i­ty. The future how­ev­er, is clear, the US will one day have nation­al health care.



About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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