16. Our Health Care Hot Mess Root Cause ꟷ Our Leaders Have LostTheir Way
- T Michael White MD FACP
- Nov 11
- 3 min read
Fixing United States Health Care - Letters to the File
Part I. The Hot Mess
Part II. The Solution
by
T Michael White MD FACP
The Realization of Universal Access to ABC-STEEEP
(Affordable, Basic, Compassionate - Safe, Timely, Efficient, Effective, Equitable/Just, Patient-Centered Care)
******
16. Our Health Care Hot Mess Root Cause ꟷ Our Leaders Have Lost Their Way
“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost;
when character is lost, all is lost.”
Billy Graham
“When all else is lost, the future still remains.”
Christian Nestell Bovee
The WhiteHouse on the Belleair Bluff
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Dr. Mike,
A letter to the file…
Your friends (and the others too) envision that your tombstone will read “Root Cause
Analysis.” You resemble that remark.
In this Part I. The Hot Mess, you have described your concerns for our United States
Health Care (non) System. Although care administered is consistently excellent:
Care has become unmanageably expensive;
Many of our residents are uninsured and do not have access to ABC-STEEEP (affordable, basic, compassionate ꟷ safe, timely, efficient, effective, equitable/just, patient-centered care). When acute care is unavoidable, the expense (the bill) immediately erodes their personal and family career, education, financial, health, housing and transportation securities. The rolls of these uninsured are getting longer.
For those insured, their premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and co-insurance are now
making them essentially uninsured when accident or illness intervene ꟷ the great United States health care paradox ꟷ insured when well and uninsured when ill. When their acute care is unavoidable, the expense (the bill) immediately erodes their personal and family career, education, financial, health, housing and transportation securities.
Yes, this worrisome mess is indeed hot. But, you have not ascribed the root cause.
After review, the candidates include:
The fine leadership of our fine country has never understood that health care must be addressed as national infrastructure enabling individual, family, institutional,
community and national security.
Leaderless, United States health care has evolved as a chaotic (non) system that has lost sight of it basic vision and mission ꟷ the aforementioned ABC-STEEEP.
Ascendent designed and implemented efficient (affordable) ABC-STEEEP has been
replaced instead by the distractions of abuse, bureaucratic inefficiency, duplication of services, non-education, empire building, fraud, greed, inequality, irresponsibility, misdirection, monument building and profit.
Today, political events have laid the root cause bare for all to see. Our country’s leaders have shut down the government and, despite plentiful food, are requiring the most vulnerable among us (40% children) to go hungry by refusing to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The root cause of our national health care debacle is revealed ꟷ the leaders of our fine, decent, generous, honorable, kind, proud country have lost their way.
Root cause identified, move on Dr. Mike to Fixing United States Health Care Part II. The Solution. A leaderless vacuum invites you in. (370 words)
Respectfully submitted with fondest personal regards,
Dr. Mike
You may leave an anonymous comment without username and email ꟷ please do. Please share your wisdom, insights and perceptions (your reality) about what I have right, wrong and/or omitted. I will be delighted to hear from you as this draft and subsequent chapters will be significantly enhanced.
Dr. Mike
Letters to the File ꟷ Part I. The Hot Mess
1. Introduction ꟷ An Orientation to Letters to the File
2. About Dr. Mike
3. My Perfect Health Care ꟷ An Uncomfortable Paradox
4. From the Watershed into Universal Access to ABC-STEEEP
5. Privilege = Responsibility ꟷ Sounding Our National Health Care Alarm
6. Quality United States Health Care Defined ꟷ ABC-STEEEP
7. United States Health Care ꟷ Sounding a Three-Alarm Fire
8. Health Care ꟷ Recruiting Devine Intervention
11. Health Care ꟷ The Wolf Is (and Has Been) at Our Door
12. The 2025 United States Health Care Contract
13. Triskaidekaphobia
14. The 2025 United States Health Care Contract ꟷ An Implicit Understanding
15. Public Health Medicine Competency ꟷ Prerequisites and Responsibilities
16. Our Health Care Hot Mess Root Cause ꟷ Our Leaders Have Lost Their Way
(more to follow)
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