Pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, hospitals, and insurance companies are all profiting on our declining health. And all those companies spend their money lavishly – millions of dollars go to Washington lobbyists – to ensure that nothing ever changes.

We spend roughly $300 billion annually on pharmaceutical drugs – nearly as much as the rest of the world combined.

One of the hardest things to understand as a patient is that “more” doesn’t necessarily mean “better.” But it’s imperative that we do. Recent studies have shown that “more” can often mean “worse” when it comes to our health.

We pay more, yet our health outcomes are worse. We give well-intentioned doctors, nurses, and hospitals the wrong tools and the wrong incentives, and it results in higher costs and poorer health.

75% of healthcare costs go to treating diseases that are largely preventable. That’s a lot of unnecessary money, and worse, a lot of unnecessary disease.

The healthcare system often uses a “a fee-for-service” model of payment – government or private insurers pay a hospital or a physician every time a procedure is performed.

Your body isn’t a car, but that’s how it’s handled when you take it into the doctor’s office. Instead of being treated as a person, your broken parts get fixed separately, one by one.