Healing American Health Care

Justin Recla:

Welcome back to Incorporating SuperPowers. Today, we’re going to be tackling a tough topic. It’s one that we all see and depending on what side of the fence that you are on, your beliefs, your views, might vary. However, I think the one thing that we can all say about this topic is there’s a better way of doing it, and a less expensive way of doing it. And what am I talking about? I’m talking about Healing American Healthcare; this is the topic of today’s conversation, and it’s one that pertains to business because if you’re a business owner, if you have employees, then you’re caught up in that system. You’re part of that system. And if we can make it better for the end-user, if we can make it better for each individual, then it is better for business all around. My guest today is Ed Eichhorn, he is the founder and creator of the Healing American Healthcare Coalition, and the author of a book by the same name. Ed, welcome to the show today.

And that is one of the biggest problems; it’s just not affordable if you don’t have good insurance. And as a result, even with the passage of Obamacare about 10 years ago, about 29 million Americans have no insurance, and another 40 million, are actually underinsured. And that group of 60 million Americans, which is about 20% of our population, all act as if they’re uninsured, so they don’t seek care till late in diseases. And that results in more expensive care, and also outcomes that would’ve been better had they been diagnosed earlier in the course of their disease. So we are very interested in making healthcare available to everyone in a way that is not really socialized medicine. We would like to do it in a way that allows us to build on our system of capitalistic endeavors.

Justin Recla:

I agree. I love the fact that you include that because anybody in business, anybody that’s been in the economic sector or whatnot, knows that when a free market is allowed to control itself, right, it tends to be best all around. So, given that capitalism doesn’t always get the best name because we’ve got kind of this weird mixture of things going on over here and healthcare just tends to be one of the line items that tends to offset or give capitalism a bad name, why then is our healthcare system so expensive?

Ed Eichhorn:

Well, there are a number of reasons. We pay more for drugs in our country, even though more than 60% of the pharmaceutical companies are based here, more than any other nation in the world. In fact, it’s been studied a number of times, we pay for the same drugs, to treat the same diseases, about 2.6 times more than all of Europe pays. And the cost of drugs in the United States is one of the most rapidly growing areas of healthcare. The pharmaceutical industry has done a fantastic job of bringing forward vaccines to fight the pandemic that we all live with, but a number of things that they do are very, very expensive. For example, in the 1980s, the big push was to encourage drug companies to make orphan drugs for diseases that didn’t affect gigantic populations.

And that’s been very successful. There are about 600 drugs that have been passed in that way. And, unfortunately, the price of them has gone up by a factor of 64 times since the law was passed. So, for example, if someone has hepatitis C, the average cost for those drugs is $80,000 a month. And there are examples where people have, or companies have, bought drugs that are generic, but only had one manufacturer, and have dramatically raised the price once they bought the drugs. So, we need to encourage more competition by helping other companies to actually begin to make drugs that are in demand, but only have one manufacturer, especially as they come off patent. And also, our hospital system has gotten very expensive because a lot of hospital mergers have occurred. So, a small segment of the hospital market makes a great deal of profit.

And most of those hospitals are actually nonprofit companies that don’t pay taxes at all. And a larger segment about 3000 of our hospitals just break even or lose money. And unfortunately, in rural healthcare, we have two hospitals a month that is closing. So, the quality of care in rural parts of our nation has been declining. And, at the same time, we have great medical schools, we have some of the most sought-after treatments in the world in tremendous hospitals, but the cost that we pay for these things has to be brought under control.

Justin Recla:

I like that. So, folks, we’re going to dive into this a little bit farther on, on the back end of this conversation, because it’s a worthwhile conversation to have, it’s worth exploring because, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have the opportunity to do something about this. To make a change in the world and help heal the American healthcare system, but, before we go on break, Ed, where can people go find more information about you?

Ed Eichhorn:

Well, we formed our Healing American Healthcare Coalition in 2020, and if you go to HealingAmericanHealthcare.org, you can learn about our coalition, and you can learn how to get our book, which is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and many other retailers.

Justin Recla:

Fantastic. Folks, go take a look at the site, pick up the book, and dive into this. This is one of those topics that we all are responsible for. And we as entrepreneurs, as business owners, have the responsibility of doing something about it one way or the other, somebody’s got to change it. It’s got to change. Otherwise it’s just going to collapse. Stay with us, we’ll be right back.

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