When the stakes are high it can be hard to acknowledge some obvious truths. My goal here is to push for honest dialogue and shared accountability.
Healthcare and living healthy has never been more expensive, or more confusing about where value actually lives. At the same time we face a grocery aisle problem: endless options, yet few that truly deliver better outcomes. Brand awareness often drives selection more than results.
My practicum research at University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business, “The True Cost of High Deductible Health Plans,” explored how financial design shapes not just what we pay for care, but when and if we seek it.
Savings don’t equal health but sometimes they’re presented as if they do.
Studies in JAMA, Health Affairs, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics show that while HDHPs lower spending, they do so by discouraging both low- and high-value care alike delaying diagnosis and driving long-term costs.
Eric Bricker, MD, recently highlighted RAND and Harvard University research showing that only 9% of primary care and 5.3% of specialist compensation are tied to value. We talk often about value-based care yet still reward volume over vitality.
Meanwhile pricing at a procedural level remains incredibly variable, with little connection to training, outcomes, or complexity. A logical place to start would be ensuring that pricing in some way, shape, or form reflects a meritocracy (at both the facility and clinical team level).
If we think of sports as a great American example: do the worst-performing athletes get paid the most? Of course not.
Healthcare is part of a broader self-care and destiny. What we ingest, how we move, our family history, and our genes all play together in a complex, beautiful symphony that determines our health.
As Peter Attia shared on 60 Minutes, there’s a difference between lifespan and healthspan. The next evolution in healthcare will come from aligning how we live, how we care, and how we’re rewarded for both.