TARGET AUDIENCE: healthcare professionals and those with a background in healthcare / medicine

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the conclusion of this presentation and consistent with the content, participants will:
~ Describe the relative position of the USA among OECD countries relative to overall healthcare expenditure,
~ Relative positions for morbidity and mortality in major categories
~ List three (3) historical benchmarks which are responsible for the US’ divergent healthcare financing model
~ Recount three (3) likely outcome scenarios for the current socio-economic trajectory vis-à-vis healthcare service delivery in the US

OUTLINE
Described as a “tapeworm on the US economy”, the healthcare system (if it is a “system”) is a hodgepodges of public / private financing, titration, regulation and control. “Medical bills” are routinely described as consumers’ greatest fears, self-denial of care due to frets about their potential costs frequently result in avoidable exacerbations, and hyperbolic descriptions of the prospective costs of chronic diseases are a new form of rhetorical demagoguery. These frictions have recently emerged in the celebrated assassination of an executive of the largest health insurance provider in the US. Over 50% of bankruptcies are due in the majority to medical / healthcare bills. The “healthcare system”, which should stand for protection and nurturance, is becoming synonymous with greed, indifference and dystopian bureaucracy. Meanwhile, because of the outdated and fractured labyrinthine payment and regulatory models, supply is contracting with hospitals and nursing homes closing and fewer people entering the caring workforce just as the demographic demand is about to skyrocket.
There are a few likely scenarios / outcomes to the current trajectory; none of them is attractive.