Americans do not like being mediocre in national health outcomes but like even less facing the complex web of social conditions that produce and reinforce those uninspiring health outcomes. In short, Americans pay top dollar for hospitals, physicians, medications, and diagnostic testing but skimp in broad areas that are central to health such as housing, clean water, safe food, education, and other social services. It may even be that Americans spend large sums in health care to compensate for what they do not fund in social care--and the tradeoff is not good for the country's health.... Physicians, many of whom see almost 30 patients per day, are increasingly aware that unmet social needs are essential contributors to worse health for Americans, and that they generate substantial costs within the medical system. In a recent national survey of 1,000 primary care physicians by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, eighty-five percent agreed that patients' unmet social needs lead directly to worse health and that those needs are as important to address as patients' medical conditions. Physicians further reported that if they had the power to write prescriptions to address social needs, these prescriptions would represent one of every seven they write. Top social needs were noted as fitness (by 75% of respondents), nutritious food (by 64% of respondents), employment assistance (52% of respondents), education (49% of respondents), and housing (43% of respondents). Among physicians we interviewed, many expressed frustration that medical tools do not address the most important drivers of poor health. One chief of emergency medicine summarized his work: "We bandage them and send them out, but what they do out there is a black box. Who knows what happens then?" Excerpted from The American Health Care Paradox: Why Spending More Is Getting Us Less by Lauren A. Taylor, Elizabeth H. Bradley All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
