National Emergency: Health

I woke up yesterday morning before the break of dawn. Unusual for me. I reached my hand down and ran it alongside the bed between the mattress and the box spring. My hand met my phone, as it does every morning. Power. A list of notifications illuminated. Among them, the top news item from the night. It was already some fifteen hours or so old at the time, but the effect was the same. Political views aside, party preference aside, my mind could only focus on three words: national emergency and deal.

Strings of other words littered other news articles related to the headline: illegal immigration, a border wall, rape, drugs, job stealing, larceny, and two others in particular — murder, death.

“Sixty-three thousand Americans since 9/11 have been killed by illegal aliens,” the President said once. “This isn’t a problem that’s going away, it’s getting bigger.”

True? False? No one really knows. Plenty have tried to assemble that puzzle of data the best they can. The Cato Institute probably studied it best — finding that illegal immigrants commit far less larceny and commit far less homicide than native-born U.S. citizens.

Sixty-three thousand deaths in seventeen years? Sixty-three thousand Americans dead? That would require a herculean killing spree by undocumented immigrants that make up less than three-percent of the population. It’s just statistically impossible. Even more so when you consider that during practically the same time period (2002 through 2016) there were only — and I say only lightly — 260,743 homicides in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The President is seemingly afraid of breastfeeding for no reason, so I guess it only makes sense that he is afraid of undocumented immigrants as well for no reason.

Regardless, neither is a national emergency. Neither is what we should be afraid of. Neither is what should keep us up at night. Neither is the epidemic that should scare us.

National emergency and a political deal. They were words and actions that just hit me wrong yesterday morning — all in the name of fiction.

Instead, here is my stance:

We should focus on a real national emergency, a real epidemic — health, or lack of health in Americans.

We spend more on healthcare [roughly $3.5 trillion and 17.8 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP)], and yet we have fundamentally the lowest life expectancy, the worst outcomes, and the highest prevalence of disease among any other high-income country on the planet.

While numbers and statistics tracking health lag several years behind reality, looking at just chronic health by itself tells us that chronic diseases alone affect more than 133 million Americans. That represents more than 45% of the total population of the United States.

Forty-five percent — let that number sink in for a minute. Resulting in somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 out of 10 deaths in the U.S, due to the fact that most of these individuals have diseases that are generally incurable and ongoing.

By 2020, chronic disease prevalence will grow to affect an estimated 157 million Americans — if not more — with it being projected that an estimated 81 million of these individuals will become effected by multiple conditions.

Let’s break that down further (Editor’s Note:statistics can / do vary greatly from one public health organization to the next, and even one governmental agency to the next — with reporting lagging behind that of the present year. I have tried to assemble the averages):

Heart Disease and Stroke — approximately1.5 million. That’s the number of Americans who have a heart attack or stroke per year in the United States. One person with a heart attack every 43 seconds. One stroke death every four minutes. In total, by 2018 accounts from the Centers of Disease Control (CDC), more than 859,000 will die. That’s one-third of all deaths per year combined — more than cancer, lower respiratory diseases, and accidents. It accounts for one in six dollars spent on healthcare costs every year — or what amounts to well over $215 billion per year for heart disease, and $320 billion for cardiovascular disease. That’s almost $1 billion per day in medical costs and lost productivity — per disease state. Strokes cost another $34 billion in direct costs and lost productivity. And, according to the CDC Foundation, spending is expected to rise rapidly — to more than $818 billion in annual direct medical costs by 2030, with lost productivity costs estimated to exceed $275 billion.

Cancer — each year in the United States, more than 1.6 million people are diagnosed with cancer, and almost 600,000 people die of the disease. It’s a horrifying disease, with equally as horrifying outcomes, even though we have made vast breakthroughs and strides toward treating it. In fact, the National Cancer Institute reports that there were an estimated 15.5 million cancer survivors in the United States, and that number is expected to rise to 20.3 million by 2026. But challenges still remain. More than 38% of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lives (based on most recent data). This equates to an estimated $80.2 billion in direct medical costs per year in the U.S., according to statistics compiled by The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2015).

Diabetes — more than 80,000 deaths list diabetes as the underlying cause of death. Another nearly 253,000 deaths list diabetes as the underlying or contributing cause of death. In total, 30.3 million Americans, or 9.4% of the population, has diabetes — and those numbers are three years old. Not to mention, there are nearly 85 million American’s with prediabetes. The disease brings with it a total economic cost of well over $327 billion by 2017 figures, a 26% increase from previous estimates of $245 billion (in 2012 dollars) — and that’s just for diagnosed diabetes.

Obesity — well over one third of the population in the United States suffers from obesity. The prevalence of obesity was 39.8%, or 93.3 million U.S. adults, in 2015–2016. Another nearly 33% of the population is overweight. In all, more than two-thirds of American’s are either obese or overweight — resulting in some 300,000 preventable deaths per year, while being linked to dozens of other chronic diseases and deaths. At the same time, obesity in childhood is growing at a staggering rate, currently affecting more than 1 in 5school age children and young people (6 to 19 years). In total, obesity costs in the United States are high, with numerous studies reporting annual health costs related to obesity to be roughly $200 billion.

Alzheimer’s Disease — the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for over 93,500 deaths per year, or 4% of all deaths, but it is often found to be grossly underreported. Approximately 5.7 million Americans are estimated to be living with Alzheimer’s disease. And both deaths and prevalence of disease are continuing to rise as the population continues to age. According to the CDC, by 2060, this number is projected to quadruple, and thus affect more than 14 million U.S. adults aged ≥ 65 years. The Alzheimer’s Association notes that out of the top ten causes of death, it’s the only one without an effective treatment or cure — costing more nearly $300 billion per year to simply care for (not including the unpaid cost of caregiving, and typically only accounting for costs in the last five years of life).

The list goes on. If not by death, by crippling pain and suffering that patients incur battling their disease day-in and day-out. Each with staggering costs and economic impacts.

And then there are things like mental health, which isn’t considered a chronic disease, yet it is a growing national epidemic — affecting 1 in 5 adults and youth alike, while being the 10th leading cause of death (suicide) in the U.S., and the 2nd leading cause of death for people aged 10–34. Depression among our youth and teens has increased astronomically in the last 5 years. And costs are staggering — with the U.S. spending well over $200 billion per year on mental health disorders, ranking it as one of the costliest areas of the healthcare ecosystem. Our own physicians are not even immune to the disease, with one doctor committing suicide in the U.S. per day — the highest of any other profession — generally attributable to burnout. “And the number of doctor suicides — 28 to 40 per 100,000 — is more than twice that of the general population, new research shows. The rate in the general population is 12.3 per 100,000.” Which goes to underscore what happens when depression or other mental illnesses go untreated or undertreated, and how important the need for early diagnosis and treatment is.

Not to mention gun related deaths in the United States, which is tied to the growing mental health battles we face — where roughly 23,000 people die each year from suicide by gun, approximately 14,500 people die from homicide (70+ of those coming from mass shootings, and more than 1,300 people die from other injuries (accidental death and war casualties).

And, yet, our national emergency is illegal immigration?

Our solution is a wall?

Politics aside. Political party preferences aside. Our priorities are miss-aligned.

In fact, our people are not our priorities, our egos are — for both sides of the isle.

“I’m old enough to remember with ‘national emergency’ meant an actual emergency to the nation and not an emergency to a damaged political ego.” — Dan Rather

Walls, they say.

“If there’s a concrete wall in front of you, go through it. Go over it. Go around it. But get to the other side of that wall.” [Google the source of that quote]

Illegal immigrants will do just that. They seek hope and a better tomorrow, just like we all do. They will find ways to go over the wall, they will find ways to go around the wall, the will even find ways to go over the wall — all for the sake of getting to the other side.

So, will criminals. So, will drug smugglers. So, will supposed rapists and killers.

Meanwhile, our people are suffering. Our people are dying — from poor health. Natural-born citizens and legal aliens alike. We all are. No one is immune.

And we’ve placed walls between them and their health and care. Them and their healthcare institutions. Them and their healthcare providers. Them and the researchers who, with better funded research, could more adequately treat if not cure any number of diseases.

And then there are those walls that stand in the way of many Americans: barriers to health, social determinants, transportation, insurance, access, finances, food, and so on.

While we’re busy focusing on fictitious emergencies that kill fictitious amounts of Americans per year, there are more than 2.7 million actual Americans dying of actual emergencies.

Heart disease: 635,260

Cancer: 598,038

Accidents (unintentional injuries): 161,374

Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 154,596

Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 142,142

Alzheimer’s disease: 116,103

Diabetes: 80,058

Influenza and Pneumonia: 51,537

Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,046

Intentional self-harm (suicide): 44,965

Those are some of 2017’s actual numbers. Actual people. Actual American deaths. One of your own government agencies reported them, as they do yearly. They’re not some statistic we blindly make up to sell a storyline and garner support.

Fearmongering serves us little — if ever.

“FOR THE PEOPLE.”

Please. For yourselves. For your own political agendas. For your own personal benefit. Both sides of the isle.

“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Not even close.

We’re losing our lives. We’ve lost any number of our liberties. And we’re becoming a nation that’s only happy because we take mental health medications to make us feel as if we are actually happy.

And while healthcare isn’t a right — although one could argue it is, just as Bernie Sanders has before — it’s stitched all throughout our Constitution. If by nothing else, from a simple statement: “promote the General Welfare.” In other words, to provide “exemption from misfortune, sickness, calamity, or evil; the enjoyment of health and the common blessing of life.”

Being an American is a blessing. More than many of us will ever realize or appreciate.

But we are being let down by the establishment — by those who lead us.

They are slowly killing us off by not protecting us — by not promoting the General Welfare.

Meanwhile, our people are suffering. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. The clock is ticking. Time is running out.

FOR THE PEOPLE.

For once, we need to put them first, us first. We need to not build walls, but tear down old ones.

And perhaps, it should start with our health, instead of just another political “deal” and wall that separates the elite from the average.

Because once you lose life, you’ve lost everything.