News & Insights
News & Insights
BOOK: JOE PUBLIC 2030
Predict-O-Meter
Joe Public 2030 makes five bold predictions about the future, which range from exciting and promising to ominous and discouraging. Through the Predict-O-Meter, we’ll continuously assess the state of the healthcare industry to track the accuracy of the five predictions.
Five Potent Predictions Reshaping How Consumers Engage Healthcare
FALL 2023 UPDATE
What influenced our latest rating?
We predicted there might be the rise of one or more politically oriented “health sects,” and now we can officially label the first: the “medical freedom” sect. We’ve referenced this before in our updates, but the movement has now has fully formed, with plans for the launch of clinics in Florida and an assault on childhood vaccines in Mississippi. And of course, the impact of Covid-19 is still reverberating, with some red-leaning states seeking to curb protections. Healthcare continues to face the influence of politics throughout the U.S., but some – such as the AMA – are taking a stand for the medical profession.
Relevant News
- Documents show how conservative doctors influenced abortion, trans rights – The Washington Post, June 15, 2023
- Report: Abortion bans led to life-threatening health complications – Axios, May 16, 2023
- Post-Roe, contraception could be next – CU Boulder Today, October 9, 2023
ORIGINAL PREDICTION
Challenges to and skepticism of the mainstream medical field and science itself have exploded in the past two years because of the pandemic and political tribalism in the U.S. Anti-vaxxers, non-maskers and Covid deniers are just the start of an expansion of this distrust of experts, which taken to its potential end could result in multiple “health sects” – primary “schools” of medical thought that coalesce around political/world-views. Imagine “Mainstreamers,” who follow the establishment healthcare point of view, “Progressives” who follow minimal medical intervention combined with complementary and alternative medical solutions, and “Contrarians” who deny mainstream medical thought and create their own set of “alternative facts” on everything from vaccines to childbirth to end of life care, and everything in between. These sects will not only follow the medical thinking that best fits their world-view, they may in fact create their own reality through alternative research, diagnosis and treatment approaches, and models for the delivery of care itself.