In Healthcare, as in Energy, We Get What We Reward

One of the most gratifying aspects of functioning as the editor of this website is the opportunity to make friends with folks around the world, many of whom work in disciplines that lie outside of clean energy per se.

Longtime 2GreenEnergy supporter and deeply-committed humanitarian Leo Schwaiger wrote just now to suggest that our readers check out this book on human health, which contains the indisputable line: The simple truth is that most doctors are good at treating acute illnesses but bad at preventing chronic disease.

Of course, a less-than-charitable interpretation of this sad fact is that the healthcare industry doesn’t profit from preventing disease, but rather from addressing its symptoms, and the more “chronic” those symptoms are, the more lucrative they are.

It’s another reminder of something we see in the energy industry: what we reward, we get more of.  We lavish Big Oil with tens of billions of dollars in annual subsidies, and we sit idle as they buy our Congress.  Is it any wonder that the migration away from fossil fuels isn’t happening any faster?