In this election year, we are likely to hear politicians from both major parties blather on about their preferred solution for “healthcare.” I can accept that intelligent people, acting in good faith, can come to very different conclusions about how our system should be run in the United States, but what drives me crazy is how the very parameters of the debate indicate muddled thinking and an inability to clearly articulate the nature of the problem. So let me take a moment to briefly define three different terms that are often used interchangeably, but shouldn’t be, and then talk for a moment about why this matters:
Health insurance is a mechanism by which we pay for healthcare. It is important to understand that it is NOT in and of itself healthcare.
Healthcare is the actual provision of health services to a patient. Healthcare consists of things like doctors, nurses, medications, tests,hospital beds, and surgical equipment.
Health is the absence of disease. A person who possesses good health will need little in the way of healthcare.
It’s crucial to keep the distinction between these three terms in mind as we think about our broken healthcare system. Our politicians talk endlessly about the need to reform “healthcare” or provide “healthcare for all,” or whether “healthcare” should be a right versus a privilege, but what they are really talking about is health insurance, NOT healthcare.
