The Easiest Way to Understand Health Care Reform

As written in the last column the national conversation about health care reform in the United States has been largely driven by fear misinformation and politics This means that it is stupid conversations largely defined by what your special interest is whether you are Republican or Democrat conservative or liberal How sad and embarrassing One of the reasons to write quotThe New Health Age The Future of Health Care in Americaquot with my coauthor Jonathan Fleece was to bring intelligence to this national conversationAs I speak to audiences across this country and on radio interview programs I attempt to provide easy ways to think about what is about to happen to the landscape of health care regardless of what the Supreme Court will rule on the current law of the land Here is perhaps the easiest way to think about what is about to happenThe entire health care sector represents about 18 of the GDP of the United States Round that number up to 20 Now let39s think about how you experience and act in the 80 of our economy that is not health care or medicine Here are some questions for you to answerDo you expect to find information when you want it amp8211 247Are most of your documents kept electronically in electronic files for access anytime you want themDo you keep information pictures or any type of content amp8211 such as your Facebook account amp8211 online or in the cloudDo you have easy access to all your personal informationDo you conduct business online from wherever you are such as online banking or online shoppingDo you communicate with important people in your life via text messaging or emailsHave you experienced an everlowering of the cost of technology and the connectivity that connects us to itI would think that you answered as least some of these questions in the affirmative Okay now go back to these questions and think about your current experience when dealing with today39s health care system Ask yourselfDo you expect to find your medical information when you want it 247Do you have easy access to all your personal medical informationDo you communicate with your health care provider via text messaging or emailsHave you experienced an everlowering of the cost of technology and connectivity relative to your health careSimply stated the realities you now accept and in fact insist on in the 80 of our economy that is not health care are not readily available in the 20 that isThink about the possibility that a family member or a friend is diagnosed with cancer Can you go online and compare the quotpast performancequot of successful treatments from the cancer centers where you live You can with mutual funds Why not with cancer You will be able to in the New Health AgeThink about the reality that 100000 people die every year due to mistakes in hospitals largely from preventable infections Wouldn39t you like to know which hospitals make the most mistakes before you decide where to go You will be able to in the New Health AgeDo you demand a reality of being able to make a choice by price comparison and past performance Of course you do Do you ask for a warranty on parts and labor Of course you do Can you do this with the current health care system No you can39tSo health care reform in the United States in this New Health Age is largely about bringing the connectivity transparency digitization and the competitive market to the health care sector of the United States economyGranted this is a simple high level look at what is about to happen with health care in the New Health Age but it is going to happen Any questionsDavid Houle is a futurist strategist and speaker He has always been slightly ahead of the curve Houle spent more than 20 years in media and entertainment Most recently David is a featured contributor to Oprahcom Check is out here wwwoprahcomdavidhoule David can be contacted at DavidDavidHoulecomRead all Davidamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Evolution ShiftCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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The Easiest Way to Understand Health Care Reform

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