I had a chance to interview Dr. Hans Rechsteiner, a leading physician and author the book, How To Play College Football at Age 65. In his book, Dr. Rechsteiner discusses the mess that is the American health care system. He discusses needless tests and out of control health care costs.
Why did you write this book?
When I first started my practice in 1982 I noticed many of my patients were not taking good care of themselves. This negatively affected their recovery and their outcome. But when I tried to counsel them, they were offended. Sometimes they fired me. They didn't want to hear about being overweight or smoking cessation or other healthy habits.
So I stopped counseling. But it always bothered me that there should be some way I could get them to listen. Over time, because I am a health nut, I collected articles and papers from the literature on healthy habits. As I approached retirement it occurred to me that using this information to write a book on healthy living would ease my conscience, since I had reluctantly stopped counseling people.
What made you decide to play college football at your age?
The football is proof that the lifestyle advice in the book really works. The book stores are full of lifestyle advice books. But none offer such striking proof that the advice actually works! The book explains how my lifestyle choices allowed me to achieve college football at 65. No small feat!
Why combine the college football with health and nutrition news in the book?
As mentioned above, the football is the proof that the "health and nutrition news" is dramatically effective. I also felt that that title and cover would catch people's attention and expose these good ideas to more people.
Why is life expectancy declining in the US?
The two most obvious answers are the recent increase in suicide and in drug overdose deaths. These are real and measurable effects. But I feel that another bigger reason is that we don't take very good care of ourselves. Hence the book.
How do unnecessary tests affect patients?
To me, the biggest effect is the large unnecessary cost. This drives up insurance premiums and makes insurance too expensive for many people. 30 million Americans are uninsured and another 30 million have marginal insurance with very large deductibles. These people are afraid to see the doctor because it may push them into bankruptcy. Medical bills are the largest reason for bankruptcy in the US.
What else contributes to healthcare costs?
The book outlines how there are several factors. Greed is one. The healthcare industry charges too much money and no one stops them. They also sell too many unnecessary tests and procedures and no one stops them. Fear is another. We order too many tests for fear of being sued. New technology of marginal worth is another. New tests and procedures and drugs are not automatically better, but they are almost always more expensive. The insurance industry is another. They are inefficient and too profit-oriented. The fact that we are an ageing society is another. There are 77 million of us baby boomers starting to use a lot of expensive services because of our advancing age. The fact that we don't take care of ourselves is another. Nearly 70% of Americans are overweight or obese and too many of us smoke. The book goes into more detail of all these problems except the last two and offers a simple and quite doable solution.
What can patients as consumers of healthcare do?
The short answer is to live the lifestyle outlined in the book. Especially if you can't afford decent health insurance. The long answer is to politically support extending Medicare as it is today to everyone, or the so-called Public Option. If the short answer and the long answer were consistently pursued, healthcare costs would be reasonable, insurance affordable, and life expectancy would climb. How do I know? That is the way the rest of the civilized world has tamed these problems.
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