Listen up, ancaps: Doctors Are Bad for Your Health

You may want to think twice before your next visit to the doctor's office. According to Dr. Barbara Starfield's now-famous study, iatrogenic deaths (those resulting from treatment by physicians or surgeons) are the third leading cause of mortality in the United States, resulting in the loss of 225,000 lives per year. Of that total, nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infections kill 80,000, physician errors claim 27,000, and unnecessary surgery results in 12,000 deaths.

But iatrogenic errors aren’t the only reason people should avoid hospitals, says physician and health care administrator Archelle Georgiou. She tells Big Think that relying on doctors may actually shorten your lifespan. Georgiou bases this idea on her studies of the earth’s so-called “blue zones,” isolated communities around the world whose inhabitants live longer and healthier lives than the greater populace.

In the Greek blue zone, the island of Ikaria, inhabitants are more than 4 times more likely to live to age 90 than Americans are—yet there is virtually no health care infrastructure. Georgiou tells us: “There are no hospitals or major surgery capabilities…. People needing emergency care are transported by helicopter to Samos (a neighboring island), and all elective surgery is done in Athens.”

A procedure like an arthroscopy or a hysterectomy that would take 3-5 days in the U.S. consumes 3-5 weeks for Ikarians, who must relocate to Athens for the procedure and convalescence. Therefore, "their threshold for elective surgery is significantly higher than ours," Georgiou says. The result is that people depend on themselves rather than doctors for non-life threatening ailments. And, knowing that health care is so inconvenient, Ikarians take greater care not to get sick—they eat a healthy diet rich in vegetables and exercise daily.

Our greater access to health care (discounting, of course, the millions of uninsured Americans) might make us more likely to live unhealthfully. “U.S. culture is steeped with a 'find it and fix it' mentality,” Georgiou tells us. Rather than try to prevent illnesses, we rely on our doctor's ability to fix what ails us. And the result is that "we spend significantly more on health care than any other nation but without the benefit of improved outcomes or longevity.” In the U.S., our life expectancy is only 78, yet we spend 2.5 times more money per capita than Japan, the country with the highest life expectancy (82.6 years). One-half to one-third of the $2.2 trillion per year America spends on health care is simply unnecessary, says former AMA chairman Raymond Scalettar.

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Listen up, ancaps: Doctors Are Bad for Your Health

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