23 Hurricane Katrinas A Year

Health­care has become crit­i­cally impor­tant to our econ­omy. At about 17 per­cent of Gross Domes­tic Prod­uct, or $2.5 tril­lion, in 2009 it’s easy to see why the local hos­pi­tal sys­tem is the largest employer in many towns across Amer­ica.

In fact for Michi­gan, the health­care sec­tor is the largest statewide employer and health­care has been described as “key to Michigan’s eco­nomic recov­ery.”

Accord­ing to Wikipedia, Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina did about $81 bil­lion in prop­erty dam­age and destruc­tion. Let’s do the math here — 75 per­cent of $2.5 tril­lion is $1.875 tril­lion of med­ical spend­ing (or health value losses) due to pre­ventable con­di­tions.

Wow that’s impor­tant!

But here’s the prob­lem.  Most health­care isn’t adding value.  About 75 per­cent of all health­care spend­ing is for pre­ventable ill­nesses or con­di­tions.

I think about this expense as sim­i­lar to money spent on recon­struc­tion after a nat­ural dis­as­ter such as a hur­ri­cane or earth­quake.  Yes, it may be stim­u­lat­ing to the econ­omy but real prop­erty and value had to be destroyed first.

So it is with pre­ventable con­di­tions.  Through our Amer­i­can lifestyles, habits and cul­ture we destroy real value — our value — the value of our bod­ies, minds and spir­its.

Then we spend and spend on health­care in an attempt to recon­struct our­selves, and we read arti­cles that cel­e­brate that spend­ing as a key dri­ver of our econ­omy.  That’s just crazy talk.

Would you wel­come a Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina hit­ting your town in order to stim­u­late the econ­omy?  I didn’t think so.

Accord­ing to Wikipedia, Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina did about $81 bil­lion in prop­erty dam­age and destruc­tion.  Let’s do the math here — 75 per­cent of $2.5 tril­lion is $1.875 tril­lion of med­ical spend­ing (or health value losses) due to pre­ventable con­di­tions.

Divide that yearly total by Katrina’s $81 bil­lion in dam­age and you get 23 — that is the health dam­age from pre­ventable con­di­tions rep­re­sents 23 Hur­ri­cane Katri­nas per year!

Okay, I want you to take a deep breath and really think about that.

Think about just how big and how bad Kat­rina was when it hit the Gulf Coast way back in 2005. It’s almost six years later and we are still recon­struct­ing, and we are still talk­ing about the mag­ni­tude of the destruc­tion.

Yet 23 “Health Katri­nas” hit us every year in Amer­ica — per­haps more if we account for pain and suf­fer­ing and lost pro­duc­tiv­ity.  The  “Health Hur­ri­cane” sea­son is 12 months long.

How much worse does it need to get before we fix the lev­ees?   Before we hurricane-proof our homes?  Can we start talk­ing about how to be healthy?  More health, less care any­one?