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Are Americans Getting Sicker or Healthier?

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Abstract

The rising cost of healthcare causes many injustices, and is not sustainable. Cost inflation is partly caused by the nature of medicine. When doctors save lives, the lives we save are usually people with chronic illnesses. Decreases in the mortality rate often lead to increases in the prevalence rate of chronic diseases and duration of chronic diseases, which are expensive to treat. As a result of advances in medical sciences, more and more people live with chronic illnesses, and therefore healthcare costs are rising. This is consistent with the conclusion that the more money a society like the USA spends on medical care, the more expensive medical care becomes. This is the dark side of medicine, which counterbalances the well-known breakthroughs of medical science. Spiritual people seek a balanced view of health that includes both viewpoints.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Behavioral Health, Waterbury Hospital in Waterbury, Waterbury, CT, 06708, USA

    Jeffrey H. Boyd

  2. 57 Bethany Woods Road, Bethany, CT, 06524, USA

    Jeffrey H. Boyd

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  1. Jeffrey H. Boyd
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Correspondence to Jeffrey H. Boyd.

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Jeffrey Boyd, MD MPH MDiv, is Chairman of the Department of Behavioral Health at Waterbury Hospital in Waterbury CT. He is the author of Being Sick Well: Joyful Living Despite Chronic Illness (reviewed in this journal 45:1)

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Boyd, J.H. Are Americans Getting Sicker or Healthier?. J Relig Health 45, 559–585 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-006-9062-5

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