Our nation has been trying to rein in the costs of healthcare for over sixty-five years now since 1960. Getting, affordable, timely, quality, healthcare is still a major concern for most Americans. No matter what we have tried to do over the years, most recently the enactment of Affordable Care Act in 2010, nothing has worked to date. The cost of healthcare keeps sky rocketing out of control. There are about twenty-seven million people in the USA who are uninsured. Another twenty-six million who are underinsured and there are millions who do not have access to quality healthcare.

I believe the only way we are ever going to be able to resolve our healthcare crisis is to cut down on the demand for healthcare services in the first place. Our current healthcare is really a “sick care” system that focuses almost all of its energies and resources on dealing with illness after it occurs as opposed to emphasizing all that could and should be done to prevent illness in the first place. In “Restoring Health to America- A Bold Plan for a Big Problem”, I show exactly how to do this. This can be done without having to raise taxes, finding stimulus dollars, or cutting patient care services to fund. It will save billions of dollars year one. Also, this plan has nothing to do with socialized medicine. 

There is only one cause and that is too much disease. More specifically too much chronic disease.  Chronic diseases accounted for about 75% or $3.975 trillion of the $5.3 trillion spent on healthcare expenses in our country in 2024.

Only approximately 9% of adults in America (or less than one in ten) eat enough fruits and vegetables daily. Slightly less than 50 % of adults in the USA drink enough water per day.  Only about 20% to 25% of the adults in America are physically fit. Over 80% of adolescents do not get enough physical activity as well. Somewhere between 50 to 70 million adults in our country suffer from some kind of chronic sleep disorder. In addition, about 84 million people or one third of all the adults in the United States do not get enough sleep. About two thirds of the adolescents in the US do not get enough sleep, especially on school nights.Too many of us experience significant stress on a daily basis. 42% of adults are obese and 31% are overweight.

I believe there is a huge lack of understanding by most people regarding what true health is and what the body needs to function efficiently. We know that as we age our bodies start to change and will breakdown at some point. I believe that people think that is there is nothing we can do about this; it is inevitable. So, we might as well do whatever we want to our bodies. We might as well eat what we want to eat, drink what we want to drink, not worry about how much sleep we get or do not get, and sit on the couch while watching TV and/or playing video games all the time. Besides which we see advertisements on TV for some drug and/or treatment that will take care of these problems if and when they occur.

Therefore, many of us relinquish responsibility for our own health to our healthcare professionals. While they certainly play an extremely important role in our health, it is up to us to make healthy lifestyle choices that enable our bodies to function as best they can and be as healthy as we can be. Furthermore, while it is true that our physical and sometimes mental health will eventually decline, making healthier lifestyle choices along the way could/should slow these negative effects on our bodies down. Therefore, it may/can take more years for that to happen and most likely we will have less physical and mental issues along the way and lead to a much better quality of life.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one-describes what the government, insurance companies, and healthcare professionals need to do to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable, quality, healthcare. Part two-delineates what each of us can do to help ourselves and our country end this major problem once and for all.

In 2024, chronic diseases accounted for 75% or $3.975 trillion of the $5.3 trillion spent on healthcare in the USA. The only way that we are ever going to be able to cut down on healthcare costs and resolve this problem is to cut down the demand for healthcare services in the first place. The sooner we can start reducing the number of us getting sick, the sooner this crisis will be over. This may seem like a simplistic statement but numerous medical studies clearly support this concept. For many years now, it has been well documented that at about 70% of these chronic diseases can be prevented by early detection and by making healthy lifestyle choices in the way we choose to live. 70% of the $5.3 trillion spent on healthcare in 2024 was $3.71 trillion

I want the reader to realize that for most of us, good health is really a choice. Being healthy has little to do with doctors, medications, lotions, potions, and/or surgery.  For the most part, it has to do with making healthy lifestyle choices. The most important ones are: good nutrition, staying hydrated, getting adequate sleep, and regular exercise. Secondarily, how you handle the various stresses of life and the air you breathe (especially if one has respiratory problems).