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The Chief Complaint: Dr. Otis Brawley - Features - Atlanta Magazine
I'm going to buy his book.
I'm going to buy his book.
How does practicing at Grady affect your view of whats happening in healthcare? I see a lot of people who suffer with undiagnosed chronic disease. These are folks who need healthcare and for one reason or another cant get it. Sometimes they arent sophisticated enough to get into the system, or sometimes healthcare is just not available.
Youve been thinking about the problems of American medicine for years. Why did you do this book now? I actually think we need to transform how we think of healthcare. Most of it is about responding to illness, not about preventing illness in the first place. Last year healthcare costs were 17.5 percent of our gross domestic product. Thats one and a half times the amount in the next most expensive country. On a per capita basis, its approaching $8,000 per person. When organizations like the American Cancer Society or the American Heart Association go to hire a clerk who makes $25,000 per year, we have to think about the fact that healthcare coverage for themif they have a family of fouris upwards of $16,000 per year. If healthcare costs keep growing at the present rate, theyll be 25 percent of our GDP by 2025. Healthcare is choking our economy.
But dont some people believe that all this money buys us the best healthcare in the world? When we look at outcomes, such as life expectancy, we rank fiftieth. We have very high infant mortality rates. Even if you look at white male life expectancy in the U.S., its lower than places like Canada, whose healthcare system we criticize. We have tremendously more CT and MRI scanners than Canada per capita. People in the United States may not live longer than people in Canada, but we sure as hell do a better job taking pictures of them. We do not get what we pay for out of our healthcare system.