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Principles for
Reform
Universal healthcare is essential to provide access to basic
healthcare. Users of the care must be educated and assisted in using the
healthcare sources wisely; most patients do not think about healthcare resources
as something to be conserved and shared. Promote the conditions and environment
for people to be healthy and make healthy choices. Insure that healthcare
spending goes only for effective care where such care is clearly specified for
all to know. Maintain an optimal capacity for the healthcare system to sustain
high quality and affordable healthcare, through investments in prevention,
medical education, medical research and improvements in the system’s
infrastructure.
Individuals have the ultimate responsibility for the healthcare system
by financially sharing its costs. It will also be in their best
interests to use the system wisely and draw on collective resources
judiciously, to take personal responsibility for their own health
behaviors and reduce their own health risks, and to become more health
literate. People with favorable risk-factor levels for postponement of
chronic illness have only one-fourth to one-half the amount of
disability in the seventh and eight decades of life as do their
counterparts. Individuals must collectively reduce the need and demand
for healthcare. Medical need represents the medically modifiable illness
burden of a defined population; that morbidity includes the sum of all
heart attacks, vehicular trauma, strokes, lung cancers, arthritis, etc.
most of which are determined by living behaviors. Medical demand
represents the request of patients and their medical care givers for
medical care services. Such demand disappears when patients are informed
and proven effective medical care protocols are followed
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