Will RFK, Jr., Make Us a Healthier Nation?

If there are two issues which everyone believes should be considered as experts, it’s education and medicine. The belief is based on the fact that just about everyone has gone to school, at least through the tenth grade. As for medicine, this country happens to be the only country in the entire world in which the number of annual visits to primary-care physicians exceeds the number of people living in the United States.

And not only do we love going to the doctor, but most of those visits happen to involve doctor-patient contacts which result in the specific medical problem being resolved by primary care. Less than 15% of all encounters between primary-care physicians and patients result in any kind of referral to a specialist or a medical facility, because the skill of primary-care physicians allows them to treat and resolve many serious health conditions which arise.

This love affair between patients and doctors is often described as the result of the government plans — Medicare and Medicaid — which cover the cost of those visits, but that’s not really true. The steady stream of people who show up at the practice of a primary-care physician is mostly the result of the medical insurance plans carried by most individuals (and family members) which are provided by what we refer to as ‘benefits’ from work.