7. United States Health Care ꟷ Sounding a Three-Alarm Fire

ABC-STEEEP

Affordable Basic Compassionate

Safe Timely Efficient Effective Equitable

Patient-Centered Care

Letters to the File

T Michael White MD FACP

www.fixingushealthcare.com

******

7. United States Health Care ꟷ Sounding a Three-Alarm Fire

“Hope isn’t just wishful thinking.”

                                                                                                Jane Goodall

The WhiteHouse on the Belleair Bluff  

Thursday, October 18, 2025

Dr. Mike,

A letter to the file…

As you approach age 80, you are here today in an arguably reasonable good state of physical and mental health because:

• As you transitioned through life, whenever illness and accident intervened, you had access to the basic care required to restore health;

• A national infrastructure of public health (vaccines, fluoride, seat belts, water treatment, etc.) was inconspicuously, but most effectively,  keeping you out of harm’s way; and

• When required, a skilled clinician (a ‘better angel’), committed to doing important work that makes a difference, was there for you.

So, it should be today for all our fine citizens.  Sadly, it is not.  Hale and hearty and having expressed alarm regarding access to care, you must now declare a three-alarm fire:

1. Millions do not have access to basic health care; and the number without access is increasing daily.  Alarm #1: our citizens do not have access to care.

2. For reasons beyond any administrative, clinical and humanitarian understanding, our basic public health guardrails are being dismantled.  Alarm #2: our public health infrastructure expertise and implementation is being discarded; and 

3. Our clinicians (our Better Angels) who care for us so well are suffering thrice:

   1. The important, meaningful work that they were promised when they dedicated their lives to medicine is being stolen from them by imposed bureaucratic regulations;

   2. Their well-earned professionalism (their trustworthiness and expertise ꟷ their raison d’etre) is under direct attack; and

   3. Opportunities for training are being limited by immigration policies that will ensure physician shortages and availability.       

Alarm #3: our ‘Better Angels’ are confronting sustained withering fire.

Alarms sounded, you are confident many will hear, and help will come.  What will that look like?  Understanding that hope truly isn’t just wishful thinking, you  anticipate:

• Our fine, decent nation will step up to universal access to affordable, basic,  compassionate, safe, timely, efficient, effective, equitable (just), patient-centered care (ABC-STEEEP);

• Our public health infrastructure will be rapidly reestablished, and massive preventable harm (unfathomable morbidity and mortality) will be avoided; and

• Hard-earned and well-deserved gratitude and respect for our Better Angels’ ꟷ clinical, ethical, interpersonal and scientific ꟷ life-time dedication to their important, meaningful work that enhances our lives will be restored. (360 words)

Respectfully submitted with fondest personal regards,

Dr. Mike

www.fixingushealthcare.com

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

1. Introduction to ABC-STEEEP ꟷ 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

(more to follow)

www.fixingushealthcare.com