What if we incentivized doctors to keep us healthy instead of paying them only when we're already sick? Matthias Müllenbeck explains how this radical shift from a sick care system to a true health care system could save us from unnecessary costs and risky procedures — and keep us healthier for longer.
Check out more TED Talks:
The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more.
Follow TED on Twitter:
Like TED on Facebook:
Subscribe to our channel:
That’s actually what most normal countries do.
It’s like this fake thing about ancient Chinese doctor’s being payed while the patient was healthy and not while he was stick. I realize this is not exactly the same, but it’s a similar concept. Countries with a national health service have a vested interest in keeping the population healthy. It’s cheaper. Now, they may be doing a better or worse job of it, but the concept itself is hardly novel.
volodymyrboitchouk Have you never seen the anti smoking ads, the posters telling you to exercise, the nutrition facts charts on literally every food item available and Surgeon General warnings about consuming too much alcohol? These are methods of keeping the population healthy. These methods cost alot if money and tons of research is poured into these tools. Just because you don’t go to the hospital and get told face to face to practice good health doesn’t mean the government isn’t trying to keep us healthy. Take some responsibility in maintaining your own health, the government helps us enough, they shouldn’t have to hold your hand any more than they already do.
Steven_Duller I am aware of all the government mandated health promotion done in the US. What I have not seen is a healthcare system that cares to do the same. Government and expensive doctors, for different reasons, care about keeping people healthy.
But the speaker himself noted that in the US 30% of expensive operations are conducted before fully exploring all inexpensive non-surgical options. It is also true that thousands of doctors were caught taking money from pharmaceutical companies to give out unnecessary opioid prescriptions (the Post ran a story about this a few months back).
The simple fact is that big corporations only care about investors. And the doctors who cater to the poor often have high student de t they need to pay off which their lower prices cannot afford. It’s not likely that all of the doctors giving out unneeded opioid prescriptions were wholly malicious. We just have a system where people are forced to do bad things just to keep a roof over their heads.
Steven_Duller seeing an antismoking ad or any ad are just recomendations for a healthy life style … this doesn’t ensures you stay healthy … This speach If I understood correct talks about cancer and how treatable it is if diagnosed early, talks about how the health system reacts to illness instead of giving ways to stay healthy … so my opinion ads are ok but we could do better
volodymyrboitchouk I understand the premise of the video and where you’re coming from but your first comment basically shrugged off what I listed earlier. To address the speech I’d say it all comes down to survival instinct and capitalism. Yes doctors do need to make their money and they will use their trade, technology and their charisma to get that money but you don’t have to give the money up. If they jump to the super expensive option ask for more cheaper options, do your own research, the only reason they take your money is because you let them. Heeding these warnings will also help cut down on doctor visits and bodily degeneration over time and thus reduce the need to be prescribed these expensive treatments in the first place. It still comes down to responsibility of the individual.
Warranty null and void if you drank a beer last year.
Sadly there is no money in healthy people :/
That is where you are dead wrong. There is a shitload of money in Healthy people. And there is also the old adage, “A Penny Saved is a Penny earned”. If more people were consistently healthy there would be FAR MORE MONEY to spend on other things. The problem is, psychopathic wealth consolidators want all the money they can steal for themselves. The only way to do that is market fixing through false scarcity.
You just aren’t well educated enough to see the bullshit doctrine at the center of modern economics for what it is. A religion for the purpose of crowd control in a capitalist slave-owning society. You are one of the sheep. The mudslurping 72% of all humans in any given sample that either choose to remain ignorant slaves, or are bound to it through mental dysfunction. I call your race the Fukpotatos. Because you are not worthy of being called human.
But that’s what he’s trying to argue.
Zenn Exile Get off your high horse. First off in economics there are no solutions only trade-offs. That said quit acting like an arbtier of truth posining comment threads ya windbag.
If you listen to what he said.. the insurance would pay doctors and pharmacists for every day that a person DIDN’T need surgery or medications.. which sounds feasible.. until he said the docs n hospitals would not get paid extra if someone got sick.. yet they would still have to take care of the person.. and when they we’re well again, then they would start getting paid for keeping them healthy again.. So the problem I saw with that was that how could you trust the docs to do the right thing, and not just the cheapest thing? I don’t have that much faith in docs.. basically he’s saying the docs would become like the insurance company, and not want to spend money on surgery or medications a patient needed.. so Idk
Isn’t that what we are already doing as tax payers?
Not if you live in the U.S.
TokenBlackman7 That is literally what I was gonna say, word for word!
TokenBlackman7 eh it’ll probably be like that everywhere soon anyway
NHS for the win!
Oh, I wish. Several years of misdiagnosis and almost dying on several occasions means I’ve completely lost trust in the NHS.
It’d be better than what the us has.
Though our Republicans would try to defund it like the Tories do.
lol paddle duck
What if we stopped posting toxic comments?
Nice speech
Speaker begins: “4am _in the morning_ ”
Me: *triggered*
It’s all just about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ !
It is very dangerous to create some “early cancer detecting technologies”. Most cancers don’t ever progress or do so late in life the patient dies of old age instead of cancer. Early detection of these cancers would mean a lot of really expensive and dangerous treatments, when those cells didn’t pose any real danger in the first place. It is the same with mammograms, sometimes, maleficence is very close to ” prevention”.
Most cancer patients die due to complications such as secondary infections. If you can detect a cancer early and protect cells from damage this is far better then waiting for the cell to become cancerous and start treatment – especially since treatments are incredibly horrific and lessen a person’s quality of life.
“dying of old age” isn’t a thing. it’s all the diseases catching up to you and your body too weak to fend them off.
You need to talk about a problem to fix it, but most people stop at the talking part…
Christian Gendreau Bernie Sanders is trying to fix it! #Bernie2020
What if we fired our doctors and took responsibility for our own health?
.
Lol, I don’t have years of graduate education in science and medical care.
Or a home blood lab, xray, ultrasound, ability to prescribe my own medication, and so on.
Good luck performing your own surgeries and curing your own cancer, SuperIdiot.
godhead no need to bully man, we just need to eat the correct food,
You’re stupid too. The correct food won’t fix bleeding out from a gaping wound.
SuperAtheist: Your question is to make us think, in a future where Artificial Intelligence will provide free diagnostic to cross references, maybe then the responsibility will switch back to us and there will be no negligent doctors, just a service to surgery on demand.
If we had true free market healthcare without government intervention into the marketplace, we’d have freedom to choose which care we access. Competition in the marketplace would push healthcare towards incentivising curing people. Long-term health monitoring most likely be sold as part of a subscription package in order to keep money flowing into the healthcare sector.
Right now, with an insane amount of government intervention, the healthcare system (especially here in the UK) doesn’t focus on curing people – it focuses on symptom treatment. People don’t have an individual incentive to look after themselves because they have “socialised” healthcare as a safety net. If healthcare costs were offloaded onto the individual rather than the collective, this would also go towards people watching their diet and keeping care of their own health.
An analogy of socialised healthcare is this:
A baby touches a hot cooker but the pain associated with the burning is distrbuted across society. Everybody feels a slight tingle, but the baby keeps his/her hand on the cooker due to not feeling the full brunt of the pain. The costs associated with being burnt (i.e. feeling pain) are socialised, so it keeps the baby from learning how to look after themselves with respect to not touching hot cookers.
I live in the us, we have a private system. It is worse by far than the British system. Most doctors are only interested in draining as much money out of the patient as possible. The opioid epidemic is the direct result of doctors handing out prescriptions because they are commissioned by pharmaceutical companies.
As for “choice” in a free market, the problem is that health care infrastructure is incredibly expensive. In order to become a doctor an individual must go through a decade of advanced schooling at exhorbitant expense. The technology and facilities are also prohibitively expensive, and there is a cap on the number of such facilities that it is efficient to have.
The end result being that, in a true free market, prices will remain high. Doctors with low enough prices to provide for low income patients will need alternative means of paying off their student debt. So they will still use the most expensive procedures and give out prescriptions according to the whims of the companies that pay them commissions. This is not because they are malicious, it is because they have no choice.
Unless if we also make medical school free, or cheap enough to be readily available to everyone, a free market will do nothing to improve care for the lower and middle class. The rich, of course, will have excellent care regardless of what system you have.
You must have short term memory. We had a free market healthcare a few years ago and it was crap. And we still do have a free market healthcare for the most part. Not sure you don’t know that unless you’re just brainwashed.
I totally get your point Jim Griffiths, and your point volodymyrboitchouk reminds me of Cuba: There are no private hospitals or clinics as all health services are government-run, and Cuban students at all levels can attend school for free.
Does Cuba have what you suggest volodymyrboitchouk? if not what is the difference?
fernicar Cuba is actually an interesting case. Their healthcare costs are some of the lowest in the world, but their life expectancy is equal to the US. I took a stats class where it was specifically noted that Cuba was an outlier that most comparative studies had to control for.
Cuba does lag behind in terms of medical tech, though. But this has more to do with the failure of socialism to grow more important sectors of the economy. If Cuba were to implement an export driven economic growth plan similar to the Nics and Brics then there is reason to believe they could acquire the capital needed to buy the tech they don’t have.
In short, Cuba is not a particularly good case for comparative study. A better example of what I am talking about is the Scandinavian countries. The NHS is also famous for its cost effectiveness, though all these cases lack the high ratio of doctors per capita that I believe is almost entirely responsible for the comparative strength of the Cuban healthcare system. It is certainly better on average than the US system, though most developed countries can boast the same.
the problem is healthy people don’t to buy insurance as much as sick people.
Then doctors would have an incentive to only see healthy patients
Jim Lockwood nope, youre confusing doctors with insurance companies
sum gal yeah sure. Dr. Could never have any incentive to only see healthy patients. Do you know some doctors refused to see Medicaid patients? They do that because Medicaid doesn’t pay as much.
sum gal .. but see, he’s right.. the docs would basically become like he insurance company.. they’ve received all the money for all the days you were healthy, but since you got sick, they don’t get paid any more to treat you.. the docs would have to pay for your surgery or medication.. Only by getting you well, would they start getting paid for you again.. But since I don’t have that kind of faith in doctors, or people in general.. the payments would be collected until you actually needed treatment.. then you’d be begging the doctor to do something, just like we have to beg and sue alot of insurance companies now..
what if we paid fire fighters to keep buildings from catching on fire?
Most of people don’t need doctors to stay healthy so why burden them with a cost that doesn’t give them anything in return?
Ever heard of a Fire Marshal? We do pay to keep building from catching on fire. Building safety inspections are routine and legally enforced.
John Doe fair but the job of firefighter specifically is to put out a fire not prevent one. In the same way doctors/surgeons are responsible for fixing a problem. Health educators, the FDA, public health officials are responsible for preventing or at least attempting to prevent the public from falling ill, much like the fire marshal.
Jonathan Breazeale: you mean “their job is to save life”, c’mon man, we don’t want to disrespect heroes, do we?
What if we didn’t subsidize bad behavior and left people pay the consequences of their actions?
What if we just stop trying to make profit from healthcare and accept that Healthcare is a required part of what it means to live in a modern society?
mhtinla correct
Irek Cz. We pay their wages.
Irek Cz. You mean making tax”payers” pay for it.
USA forced health Care is ridiculous. Health reform was gonna be free to all. Now it’s 2000-3000 a month.
I’m gonna tell you guys a secret;
If you want to be healthy, practice ketosis and intermittent fasting.
You will live to 90-120 years old and then die in your sleep.
Never heard that one? Look it up.
health and food, non profit. absolutely
In a free market economy this couldn’t work because insurance companies would stop insuring people who are chronically sick or high risk. These people would fall be the wayside and have limited access to the quality healthcare they would need.
Jonathan Breazeale The country-based system he is speaking of, is a state based health care (like the European standard). His idea just goes a half-step farther to reevaluate the need for certain procedures.
There is no a question about „not having an insurance“ or „not able to pay for health care“. This is not a thing – it is literary illegal.
He is basing the system on health care as a human right – which is absolutely logical for any European.
It is quite clear if you consider that he is German.
Eat a plant based diet with little to no oil, salt, sugar, processed foods. You won’t need a doctor. Take a B12, D3, probiotic, and algae omega 3 supplement.
Jules L that’s not how disease works
lol
immature
It’s simple. Medicine is also another for profit business.. They would be putting themselves out of business if they actually cared about natural remedies, or more cost effective options.. Take a look at advertisements for medicine. They claim to treat a certain symptom, but the list of “side effects” is longer than and worse than the original condition being treated.. Doctors treat symptoms individually, instead of treating the body as a whole and getting to the root causes of the problem which originate in other parts of the body.. And a whole lot more..