Keep up with the newest discussion about natural medicine and the health care revolution! Subscribe to our RSS feed. Want to know more about RSS feeds? Read about why you should use RSS, and how to do it!

My dad doesn’t know much about cars. He taught me everything he knows, which was to call a tow truck if it doesn’t start. With no mechanic in the family to teach me, needless to say, I don’t know much about cars either.

I do know what a spark plug looks like and they are supposed to be replaced at some point. I believe it’s called a “tune-up” but I was not really sure. Rather than ask someone, and have my manhood questioned, I decided I’d just drive my car until the spark plugs stopped working. That’s what you do, right? Drive it until it brakes down then replace the part that stopped working. What’s the big deal? Isn’t that why I have AAA?

Apparently, as the mechanic informed me with a scolding tone, spark plugs need to be replaced due to the increasing gap between electrodes, which occurs with use. The larger gap makes it harder for the plug to fire, decreasing the performance of the engine, until it won’t work.

Feeling like I was going to be sent to my room, I asked, “How much will it cost to replace the spark plugs?”

The mechanic responded, “Spark plugs are cheap. They only cost $17.”

I smiled. I was worried it was going to cost a small fortune to fix.

Then he continued, “But since you waited so long to replace them, you burned out your igniter and blew your distributor. The distributor is going to cost you $300.”

I stopped smiling.“And,” he added with a disapproving look, “the distributor is a lot harder to install than plugs. With labor, you’re looking at about $450. Had you brought the car in for a tune-up like you’re supposed to, it would only have been $50.” Then in a complete Father Knows Best tone he let me have it, “You could have prevented this problem.”

My approach to the maintenance of my car is the same approach the majority of Americans use for their health. The prevailing attitude is to just keep doing what you’re doing until it breaks down, then have the insurance pay to fix it. As I learned, this is a very expensive approach. I didn’t know about the importance of changing my spark plugs because no one taught me.

Americans don’t know the true impact diet and exercise have on their health simply because they are not being taught.

Sure, a proper diet and exercise are recommended because they are “good for you”, but the direct connections down the road to obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, depression, and many cancers are not stressed. Over 60% of Americans are over weight and that number is growing, literally.

Our current system of “health care” focuses nearly all of its attention and money on treating the sick, much like me waiting for my car to brake down before I did anything. This is not health care. This is sick care. What we need is a true health care system that focuses on preventing people from getting sick in the first place.

Much like my mechanic, Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It would cost a fraction of the money we spend now on sick care to teach people how to be healthy and prevent chronic health problems from developing. In the long term, this approach would decrease the over all cost of care, improve the quality of care due to less strain on the system, and improve people’s quality of life.

Implementing a system of prevention will take some work, but anything worth having requires work: creating a Democracy, abolishing slavery so all could enjoy Democracy, and the iPhone. Fortunately, Americans already understand the idea of prevention. We change our oil every 3,000 miles to prevent engine failure. We invest a little bit of money to improve our engine’s performance and extend its life.

Americans need to take what we’ve learned at Jiffy Lube and apply to our health care.

-Lou