Healthcare by 2015, he said, will become less about treating sickness, focusing more heavily on preventive care. The two drivers of this transformation, McGee said, are an aging population and the increased presence of multinational corporations.
McGee is the host of Health Politics, an internet-based program that focuses on increasing preventive healthcare. His lecture was sponsored by the C. Everett Koop Institute as part of the John P. McGovern lectureship.
Healthcare is currently a $1.6 trillion industry that makes up 16 percent of the United States' gross national product, Mcgee said. The industry has long been dominated by a limited number of players, including hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and health insurance organizations. McGee said that multinational corporations such as Google and General Electric are entering the healthcare industry and beginning to break down this monopoly.
He cited the Center for Aging Service Technologies as an example of this shift. The research organization was created by 400 of the world's largest companies five years ago, and by 2010 it is expected to introduce a wide array of technology designed to promote healthy lifestyles. This technology would include sensors able to track household movements. For example, technology could record when a person has showered, turned off the stove or taken his medication. The sensors would also inform the caregiver of a grandparent or child's blood pressure and other vital signs.
McGee said that these new corporations are not trying to supplant the current system of interventionist healthcare, but are instead trying to complement it.
"They are not saying 'I'll be your heart surgeon'," McGee said. "They're saying, 'I can help you plan so that you'll never need heart surgery.'"
According to McGee, this transformation has been spurred by an aging population that is shifting. Families used to have three generations living, but now there are four or five living generations. He said that 50 percent of all 60-year-olds have a parent still living, and many are forced to take care of that parent. Some 20 percent of American families have an informal caregiver, usually women ages 45 to 65 caring for an elderly relative.
McGee noted that it is these women who bear the brunt of the healthcare system's inadequacies, and that they are the ones demanding change. They are often forced to manage time between children and grandparents and receive little recognition or help from the government or the healthcare industry.
"They are saying, 'change the damn system,'" McGee said. "'It's broken, and it's not serving me very well. I'm sick of caring for my loved one under a system that is not helping me.'"
McGee said that the current system has survived because many players in the healthcare industry seriously oppose reform.
"If we were ever to get this system rationalized and organized it would in the end result in price compression," McGee said. "A single block would be created among players, and those who would have to negotiate them would flatten prices. Many health insurance companies would rather negotiate a thousand different contracts then negotiate one contract."
In the end, however, McGee said he believes that the move toward preventive healthcare is inevitable and that the current industry must either adapt to the changing world or be rendered irrelevant.
