If a product is free, you are probably the real product. You can see this very clearly in free health checkup campaigns. First, they make you worried about your health. Then they turn you into a paying customer of private healthcare.
The Business Behind Free Checkups
Have you noticed how many free health checkup campaigns are being offered by private hospitals?
You might think that UNICEF has launched a global public health project and that private healthcare providers are offering free checkups out of a sense of social responsibility.
Well, that is not quite how it works.
You go in for a checkup and suddenly you are told about all sorts of health problems you never even imagined you had. If you are already a health conscious and worried person, this can make you even more anxious.
And then you realize that free cheese is only found in a mousetrap.
What comes next can be expensive tests and treatments, some of which may be necessary and some of which may not be.
The Definition of Disease Has Changed
When being different from normal becomes a medical problem
Can you turn a healthy person into a patient?
If you have medicines to sell and consultation fees to collect, apparently you can.
According to the argument presented here, the pharmaceutical industry has created thousands of new diseases over the past fifty years. The idea is simple and rather disturbing.
There is now supposedly a medicine for every disease and a disease for every medicine.
And to make this possible, the definition of disease has gradually been changed, often with the help of the media.
A disease can become a condition described as being something slightly different from normal.
Under such a definition, almost everyone can be considered a patient.
Being a woman can become a medical issue in itself. Being a young woman can become an even more serious case. Heart disease risk, hyperactivity, obesity, countless types of allergies, cholesterol, premenstrual syndrome and concerns about appearance can all become subjects of medical attention.
And these are some of the things you may hear about when you go for a supposedly free checkup.
Two Questions, Two Answers About Free Checkups
Does it work?
Apparently, it does.
At least according to the argument made here, around 20 percent of people who go for a checkup become worried after looking at the results they are presented with.
They may then move on to paid consultations, procedures and, above all, an apparently endless stream of diagnostic tests and medical bills.
Where is the public sector in all this?
Almost nowhere, according to the writer.
Instead of providing adequate affordable healthcare to its citizens, the public sector has effectively left people at the mercy of private healthcare providers.
For people on low incomes, healthcare has become increasingly difficult to afford.
Healthcare costs a fortune. Dying is free.
So How Did We Survive?
We now live in a world where there seems to be a medicine for every disease and a disease for every medicine.
Almost as if we have all signed up to the same deal, we have gradually lost the taste of cheese, the smell of tomatoes and the pleasure of good bread, all in the name of staying healthy.
We look at all the things being recommended to us and ask the system and the healthcare industry a simple question.
So how did we survive?
A Private Healthcare Dictionary
City hospitals
I call them patient malls. You can find almost anything you are looking for, except perhaps an actual cure.
Private healthcare
For those who can afford it, there are five star rooms with no queues and no waiting. But the quality of healthcare may have far fewer stars.
Checkup
A general and detailed health screening carried out when a person has no particular complaint or known illness.
Diagnosis
The process of suggesting a medical explanation or solution based on a patient’s symptoms, clinical findings and test results.
Article by Şeref OĞUZ (ekonomim.com) – translated by BTT
