Dr. Oz gave a press conference this week looking at his plans to reform Medicare and Medicaid and once again, I am hopeful that there is a new direction being taken by our government when it comes to our health.
Dr. Oz Reveals His Plan for Medicare and Medicaid
Dr. Oz was sworn in as the head of CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) on April 18th and used the opportunity to outline his plans for agency moving forward.
The big idea he is basing his entire plan around is the fact that “70% of the healthcare expenditures of this country are driven by chronic disease”. That is a massive number and will be the main focus of the agency moving forward.
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Chronic Disease is Bankrupting the US
You can hear his remarks here but I want to talk today about one particular aspect of his plan. The fact that it’s the long term chronic disease that is bankrupting our country’s healthcare budget and robbing our American citizens of years of life and health.
Americans aren’t just dying faster, they start getting sick sooner and spend most of their lives managing chronic diseases.
In fact, the 70% of healthcare expenditures that Dr. Oz talked about is primarily the many medications each person has to be on to control each of the chronic diseases they have.
You come in to your doctor and get your blood pressure, cholesterol and A1C checked and most people walk out of the doctor with a prescription for one or more of those issues.
Ask any of your friends when the last time was that they went to the doctor and didn’t get a prescription for something, I guarantee that’s very rare.
Ozempic is coming
In terms of cost to the bottom line of our health system, none of these drugs can hold a candle to what is around the corner. Right now, Ozempic is covered under Medicare Part D for Type 2 Diabetes but there is a strong push by pharmaceutical companies and the lobbyists they control to get Ozempic approved for weight loss on Medicare.
What happens when a very expensive drug is approved for weight loss in a country with an obesity epidemic? Probably bankruptcy or we print so many dollars to cover it we dig a hole so deep we can never escape.
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I’m Rooting for Dr Oz
As with most of the things RFK is doing, I am just as on board for the changes Dr. Oz is promising to bring to our healthcare system. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear him tell Americans what it is that is driving the epidemic of chronic disease that we are seeing and in my opinion, it’s our food.
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We have prioritized cheap carbs, fast food and junk food to be the cheapest and most widely available food available.
It’s those cheap carbs that are driving the obesity and Type 2 Diabetes epidemics we are seeing and they also drive up blood pressure, increase rates of cardiovascular disease and cause the lipid disregulation that gets everyone put on a statin. Check out How Sugar Drives Weight Gain, as well as Are You Eating the Wrong Fats?.
Fixing this problem would require doctors to spend more time with each patient educating them about dietary choices instead of writing a script and pushing them out the door to see the next patient.
It would also require the doctors themselves to be educated about the effect of food on out health and from what I’ve seen in my own experience, there just aren’t a whole lot of doctors out there that have either the knowledge or the willingness to do that.
Every positive change I’ve seen in my own health was the result of ignoring doctors advice and finding my own way.
