How would you improve US health care?

A drug is approved by the FDA after three trials (a fourth trial is ongoing I believe).

Phase 1 tests safety. That's the only trial that they should have. As long as it is safe, let the market decide which drugs work.

How come?

A) to go through all the phases could costs $100s of millions of dollars. This drives up the price of medications and also prevents life-saving drugs from hitting the market sooner.

B) companies have to raise that money from investors. So companies that are unsuccessful at raising money often never get lifesaving drugs to the market.

C) There is a degree of implicit corruption where former FDA officials often find jobs later at big Pharma. This is not conspiracy theory but fact. Former SEC officials often end up at banks. Former Congressmen end up at lobbying firms, etc.

So the FDA has its uses (Safety) but let the markets and other modern technologies decide which drugs work.

If my doctor says I need antibiotics why do I need a prescription? Is Amoxicillin a party drug? Do, doctors get paid for writing the prescription and the pharmacy is able to charge more for it. Just make a lot more drugs over the counter.

Let doctors decide from company neutral-companies and research reports which drugs are good.

Get lower insurance rates if you are healthy, exercise, have good nutrition, live a low risk life, etc. Use AI monitors to help determine these things to lower the insurance rates for your family.

I feel like this has been talked about forever but never happens. Why, when someone switches doctors does one doctor have to "send" the other doctor records? Just log into your health account and always access all your records. Makes it easier to switch away from bad doctors.

Most people using this site probably read a lot about supplements. Does Vitamin C really help the common cold? Do Vitamin D and Zinc boost immunity? People tell me so but I have no idea. I wish there was more commonly available research but unfortunately there seems few clinical studies on this stuff because there's no money in it.

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This is the current food pyramid. This is what EVERYONE is supposed to eat every day. What the hell is that a picture of? So I looked it up. At heart.org its says eat six servings of pasta a day. What?

And shouldn't this be dependent on other factors. Like many Asian people are lactose intolerant. Should they be eating the dairy component here. Following the food period is, in part, what has led to such obesity over the years.

Life expectancy for smokers is TEN YEARS LESS than non-smokers. So make smoking illegal. Simple. Or don't make it illegal and let people choose death. I'm fine with that also.

People who drink 18 alcoholic drinks per week lose on average five years of life.

So if the goal of "health" is to live longer with higher quality of life, simply stopping smoking and drinking will give you a solid 16 years.

The US spends $750 billion a year on the military budget. I'm not arguing against that.

But given that poor sleep habits lead to a $44 billion in lost productivity (which effects every part of the economy and results in less taxes collected by the US) and given that the quality of your bed is important for sleep hygiene (not the only thing but important) how about subsidize the cost of good quality beds for everyone.

A bed can last ten years so buying a bed for all 100,000,000 workers for $500 would be $50 billion and would save up to a trillion dollars in lost productivity. So a $50 billion expenditure would probably net the US $300 billion in additional taxes.

I read about this in Kai-Fu Lee's book 2041.

Use AI to read people's email and warn them of they are engaging in activities that the AI has deterred could increase health.

The first story in the book, co-written with a famous sci-fi writer from China, has an interesting theory of how this could play out.