As in the case of postsecondary education, I propose that a major share of the blame for relatively poor healthcare services can be assigned to Arrogance and Ignorance in American health care. As Marty Makary (2019, p. 4) has noted, the crises in American health care (and public health in particular): “can be divided into two types: naturally occurring and man-made. Many of the crises we face in medicine today are not naturally occurring viruses or other hazards from nature. They are manufactured, like the crisis of smoking, or opioid addiction, or antibiotic resistance”.
There certainly have been many technological innovations in healthcare that have benefited Americans; however, innovations in the operation of healthcare systems, which require what Makary might label “man-made” acceptance and sustained engagement have often been set aside in favor of outmoded operations that are encrusted in the minds and hearts of those leading the healthcare systems and those providing legislative support for these systems.
Historical Nothingness/Part Two: Ranging from innovative funding and costing plans to the creation of interdisciplinary treatment teams, many of the good ideas of the late 20th Century and early 21st Century are no longer to be found on the American healthcare landscape. As in the case of postsecondary education, we find an absence of memory which leads to profound vacuums in the mentality of healthcare leaders and organizations. At the national level we find the arrogance and ignorance of regressive public health policies. While early in the 21s Century the United Kingdom and many other countries were exploring and introducing models of affordable health care for all citizens, the United States was struggling with increasing healthcare costs for all citizens. Even in America, innovative ventures associated with the “War on Poverty” and “Head Start” programs that dealt with preventive programs for low-income citizens and nutrition for all children tended to “run out of steam” or remained in operation only in “watered down” form. And the potential of a National Health Program remains only a remote possibility.
As in the case of postsecondary education, the COVID-19 invasion made matters worse. However, exceptional medical technologies came to the rescue and soon produced ameliorative injections. As Markey (2019, p. 145) noted, “medicine has a tremendous heritage of solving problems.” However, as Markey (2019, p. 145) also notes, medical science and clinical wisdom have not been as successful at finding ways to reduce costs. “Less is more” is now a common refrain at medical conferences and in medical journals. A void emerges in systems where there is no history (of past successes in reducing costs) and no curiosity (regarding low-cost health care offered elsewhere in the world). The ‘polymath” in healthcare leadership is all too rare. And if this person does exist, they are likely to be despised (as is Anthony Fauci) by those who favor the “good old ways” or “odd new ways.”
