Dr. Makary warns that academics and policymakers are not addressing Americans’ healthcare needs

Healthcare leaders in the United States are losing touch with the reality of the basic health care needs of the average American, a leading public health expert has warned.

Dr. Marty Makary, a public policy expert from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, told DailyMail.com that the current public health system in the US leaves the average person deprived, with the pandemic unfolding. some system errors.

While officials have spent the past two years focusing on Covid and using funds for testing, vaccines and treatments, other major issues impacting Americans every day like obesity. The nation’s obesity and diabetes, and the soaring costs of Covid-free care, have been completely ignored.

Makary highlights the disconnection and exorbitant costs Americans bear at the hands of a predatory and violent health system in his 2019 book ‘The Price We Pay,’ Where He Goes to 22 US cities across the country to report vulnerabilities in the system.

Dr Marty Makary (pictured), told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that he believes there is a disconnect between health leaders and the public in the US, which is costing Americans poor both their money and their health.

“The problems that really affect our patients are not the ones we really focus on,” explained Makary in an interview.

He points to two major medical events particularly in the 21st century that explain the large-scale gap between the medical intelligentsia and the laity.

First, it’s Affordable Care (ACA), known to many as ‘Obamacare’, the 2010 law that expanded Medicaid in the United States, and also added protections for the condition from advance, among other policies for U.S. health care.

Academia can’t keep up with the big news cycle surrounding the ACA, and their lengthy research, peer-review, and publication process makes it impossible for them to be a real player in real-time discussion. around a major change in the public. health policy.

In ‘The Price We Pay’, 2019, Makary explores 22 US cities to learn how the average American interacts with the system and where their needs are not being met.

Meanwhile, reporters can quickly put together a well-informed story pack by talking to experts like Makary and publishing a story that thousands of people will read, giving him ideas for what to expect. bridge the gap between formal research and the media in general.

A decade later, COVID-19 broke out in the Eastern Hemisphere, first sweeping through China, before making its way to Europe.

There was still a period of time in February where the virus still hadn’t reached the US to the same extent it hit other countries.

Makary notes that during this period, top health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci were simply telling Americans not to go on cruises, while the experts he spoke to with Italy and China instead. It warned that a tsunami was coming – and that the country seriously needed to start preparing.

“It was clear to me that public health experts were asleep at the wheel, and noted that at the time he was one of the first public health figures in the country to issue a warning,” he said. catastrophic pandemic.

He said that while Americans need answers about Covid, how to protect themselves, their families and how dangerous the virus is, many other experts are hesitant to agree with public health officials like Fauci , even if the data indicates the other direction.

Makary said that many doctors and medics delayed health officials like Dr Anthony Fauci (pictured) early on during the pandemic, which killed intellectual discussion and led to group thinking.

The lack of an open intellectual discussion on these issues has resulted in officials making ineffective policies.

There are two policies in particular that concern him. First, do not allow family members to visit the patient in the time before death.

He said: “The policies of visiting hospitals are very strict.

‘A violation of human rights in my opinion. Who am I, as a doctor, to tell a 16 year old they can’t take the risk of buying Covid to say goodbye to their dying mother, who directly held their hand. I thought it was inhumane. ‘

He also said that closing schools is a failed policy, pulling children relatively safe from the virus out of the classroom, causing developmental and mental health problems for limited benefit.

Bur Makary’s main problem with the state of American healthcare, even before COVID-19 took the world by storm in 2020, was its price.

In ‘The Price We Pay’, Makary visited Americans in the field in cities around the country to find out what real problems are causing the nation’s people.

While the issues are wide-ranging, everything is mostly money-related.

Whether it’s the clinics holding predatory health fairs at local churches, where they convince people to get expensive treatment for conditions they might not have, or the lack of transparency about prices at major US hospitals because of a cat-and-mouse game between providers and insurance companies, money is at the root of it all.

An interesting, but surprising, phenomenon discovered by Makary and his team of researchers at Johns Hopkins is that hospitals actively file thousands of lawsuits against the patients they treat, and cut wages for a long time to pay for simple procedures at sky-high prices. .

The biggest offender is the Carlsbad Medical Center, in the small town of Carlsbad, New Mexico.

The hospital sued nearly everyone in town over medical bills, an issue Makary raises in his book. He told DailyMail.com that in the time since the book’s release, the number of lawsuits has dropped by 80%.

However, these high costs can prevent someone from seeking the care they need, contributing to the nearly one million preventable deaths Americans suffer each year.

In Makary’s opinion, the issue is once again at the forefront of public health policy during a pandemic, where funds have been misused.

Federal officials have invested heavily in Covid tests, vaccines, therapies and masks over the past two years, but have not reaped much return on their investment.

Makary criticizes health officials for investing too much in COVID-19 testing for relatively healthy, asymptomatic people, while ignoring other Americans’ needs in healthcare. . In the photo: New Yorkers line up to receive a COVID-19 test on January 3

While American adults need the first two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, Makary criticized spending money on providing booster shots to young people – something they may not need.

Instead, the funds could go towards helping people with cancer – for which Makary notes that 40% will go bankrupt due to treatment.

Americans have a hard time navigating America’s complex and opaque healthcare system, and once they do, costs could drop at any time.

Yet there are few resources for them to seek help, even as officials spend billions of dollars to ensure that drugs like Paxlovid are available to potentially Covid survivors.

Another example of these failures he points to is that major universities spend millions of dollars on Covid tests to perform asymptomatic screening, while their students struggle with Mental health problems are on the rise and there is nowhere to turn.

He describes much of what the government focuses on as ‘low value care,’ or inefficient use of resources to help the maximum number of Americans in the most efficient ways possible.

Makary blamed this disconnect between officials and ordinary people on poor use of resources.

“I think the medical establishment needs to be motivated and challenged to think in new ways, and when they are not motivated or challenged, they can fall into groove and group thinking,” he said. .

Makary also believes that it was a mistake for federal officials to buy millions of doses of Paxlovid and distribute it to potentially Covid survivors.

Throughout the book, Makary notes that when he attends major conferences that feature other important names in American healthcare—whether executives, academics, or other officials. – many people are completely unaware of the struggles ordinary people face.

Many people don’t even know what’s going on in the company they represent when asked directly by Makary.

He hopes his book, which was released before the COVID-19 pandemic but has become increasingly relevant in the meantime, can help bridge the gap between glitzy conventions and ordinary people hoping for just a few minutes. Get the care they need at an affordable price.

“My aim in writing the book was to create a common public dictionary both within the medical community and beyond to describe these practices in a way that we can address,” he explains.

‘We realized that if we really wanted to impact health education, public policy, we had to do both and the rigorous scientific research we published [medical journals] at the same time, communicate directly with doctors and the public through books and articles. ‘

Source: | This article originally belonged to Dailymail.co.uk