Not that much.
The Care system is loaded with expensive bells and whistles. Nutrition, lifestyles, environmental toxins and emotional-spiritual issues helping longevity are seldom covered, even though those issues contribute to longevity much more than the system’s expensive, invasive tools.
Take a look at the evidence:
How Much Does Healthcare Influence Longevity?
Medscape – May 13, 2019.
“Healthcare is only one of several factors that affect longevity in the United States, a new study reaffirms. Behavioral and social factors have much more influence. Robert Kaplan, PhD, and Arnold Milstein, MD, MPH, from Stanford University School of Medicine’s Clinical Excellence Research Center in California, tested how much healthcare affects the risk for premature death using four different research methods and data sets. All four methods yielded the same conclusion: Healthcare accounts for between 5% and 15% (roughly 10%) of variation in premature death, whereas behavioral and social factors account for 16% to 65%. The authors report their findings in the May/June issue of Annals of Family Medicine.”
Bridging the divide between health and health care
JAMA 2013;309:1121
“Health Care delivery accounts for only 10% of preventable deaths, with the remainder attributable to personal behaviors, social and environmental determinants, and genetic predispositions. As currently constituted the Health care delivery system has little direct control over these other factors. However, consensus is developing that truly controlling health care costs and improving the overall health of Americans will require a much closer partnership, permeable boundaries, and increased interdependence among the health care delivery system, the public sector, and the community development and social service sectors… To create a culture of health will require creating a market for health, moving away from the current market for treating disease.”
May 29th, 2006, cover story written by David Eddy, a Heart Surgeon trained in Mathematics and chairman of the Center for Health Policy Research & Education at Duke University. 75-85% of what we are doing in health care is unproven, and often driven by monetary gain by the few who stand to benefit the most.
