The difference between health and healthcare

Everyone seems to be debating what the US can do to reform healthcare because it's become too expensive and unwieldy. I think we need to define our terms clearly.

What all of us want is to remain healthy. However, we do not need doctors to do so. We all know the simple things we need to do to keep our health - such as eat right, sleep well, and exercise. Doctors add very little value to remaining healthy - and most of us we don't see our doctors when we are healthy !

We need doctors to take care of us when we fall ill - and this is exactly as it should be. Doctors provide illness care ; and help us to fight our illness and become healthy again. However, because illness care has a negative flavour, the medical profession has put a spin on what they do, and believe they belong to the healthcare industry.

While we are all worried about the overspending on healthcare; and understand the need to make sure medical care is provided sensibly to prevent wastage, the problem is that when we ( or one of our loved ones) fall ill ourselves , we want the doctor to do everything possible for our personal illness care - the money be damned.

It is this dichotomy between what we feel we deserve personally; and what society should do for the rest of the unwashed masses, which is what causes the tension and polarised views in this debate.