We have become remarkably good at treating disease.
We can replace joints, open arteries, remove tumours, transplant organs, control infections and perform extraordinary emergency surgery. Modern medicine can keep people alive through conditions that might have killed them a generation ago.
I’m not arguing against any of that. I’m asking a different question:
Much of it is disease care. It begins when something hurts, something breaks, a test comes back abnormal, or somebody finally becomes sick enough to enter the system.
To me, healthcare should begin long before that. It should begin while you are still healthy.
We Wait Until Something Breaks
Think about how most people encounter the healthcare system.
You feel lousy. You make an appointment. Maybe you wait weeks or months. Eventually somebody examines you, orders a test and gives the problem a name.
Now you have a diagnosis.
And this is something I have wondered about for years:
The doctor says you have something, so you have it. The doctor says you need this medication, so you take it. The doctor says you may need it for the rest of your life, so you accept that too.
Maybe the doctor is absolutely right.
But shouldn’t you ask?
Shouldn’t you understand the test? Shouldn’t you know what else might produce that result? Shouldn’t you ask what you can change yourself? Shouldn’t you understand the risks and benefits of whatever treatment is being proposed?
And when the decision could affect the rest of your life, shouldn’t you consider a second opinion — or even a third?
That isn’t anti-doctor. That is being an informed human being.
A diagnosis should make you more involved in your health, not less.
Be Your Own Doctor
One of the central ideas behind Insure Your Health Yourself is something I have said for years:
I don’t mean never see a doctor.
I mean stop handing complete responsibility for your health to somebody who might see you for twenty minutes while you live inside your body twenty-four hours a day.
Listen to it. Learn about it. Know your numbers. Ask questions. Research what you have been told. Get another opinion when the stakes are high.
And ask a question that I don’t think gets asked nearly enough:
Food. Exercise. Weight. Sleep. Stress. Alcohol. Smoking. Strength. Mobility. Rest. Recovery. What you put into your body and what you expose yourself to.
Those things are not side issues. They are health.
I wrote about this before in Prevention: The Best Health Insurance There Is!
Your Second Opinion Should Always Be Fasting
I have another article with a title that probably irritates a few people:
Your Second Opinion Should Always Be Fasting.
I still believe that.
Fasting has been part of my life and my health thinking for decades. My instinct when something is going wrong is not always to immediately add another substance to my body.
Sometimes I want to stop. Simplify. Rest. Observe.
What changes? How do I feel? What is my body telling me?
I feel very strongly about fasting, but I also recognize that a prolonged fast is not appropriate or safe for every person or every medical condition. Nobody should blindly stop essential medication or delay urgent treatment because of something they read on a website.
But I absolutely believe we should ask more questions before automatically accepting medication, procedures or lifelong treatment as the only possible road.
A second opinion doesn’t mean rejecting the first one. It means you haven’t stopped thinking.
I Learned This the Hard Way
This isn’t some philosophical exercise for me. I’ve watched medicine up close in my own family.
My father, Ivan W. Thrasher, lived to 96. He wanted to reach 100. Late in his life he underwent a lung biopsy, and I have never been able to shake my belief that the procedure did him more harm than good.
I cannot prove that. I can only tell you what I witnessed and what I believe.
My mother, Orpha, is now 104. Decades ago she underwent major bowel surgery. It dealt with a serious problem at the time, but she has continued to struggle with bowel problems and scar tissue many years later, along with repeated trips back into the healthcare system.
And then there is my own experience.
I spent years trying to understand a collection of symptoms that I believed were connected to mercury exposure from old dental amalgam fillings.
I tested. I researched. I experimented. I asked questions.
And I was repeatedly told that mercury could not explain what was happening to me.
That experience became The Story I Had to Tell.
Those experiences did not convince me that medicine is useless.
They convinced me of something else:
Meanwhile, the Systems Are Straining
Look at what is happening around us.
Here in Ontario, access to primary care remains a major problem. The provincial government’s own 2026 plan acknowledges that approximately 1.9 million Ontarians who want primary care still need to be connected to it.
Across Canada, emergency departments continue to struggle with long waits and overcrowding.
Then look south of the border.
The United States spends more per person on healthcare than any other wealthy country, yet millions of people still worry about cost, insurance coverage, denied treatment and medical bills.
Two very different systems. Two very different sets of problems.
But both illustrate something that bothers me enormously:
Where is the same urgency about keeping people healthier in the first place?
My Father Was Talking About This in 1967
More than half a century ago, my father stood in the Ontario Legislature talking about physical fitness and prevention.
He argued that investing in physical training when people were young could reduce the burden on doctors and hospitals decades later.
Then he said something I have never forgotten:
That was 1967.
You can read My Father’s Message About Health if you want to see what he actually said in the Legislature.
More than half a century later, we are still arguing about many of the same things.
What If Healthcare Started With Health?
What if the central question were not simply:
What if we spent far more time asking:
Not everything can be prevented.
Genetics matter. Accidents happen. Infections happen. Cancer happens. Bodies wear out. People who appear to do everything right can still become desperately ill.
There are no guarantees.
But that does not make prevention meaningless. It makes prevention one of the few parts of the equation where we actually have some control.
Move your body. Maintain your strength. Eat reasonably well. Sleep. Keep learning. Pay attention when something changes. Know what you are putting into your body. Ask questions before accepting major interventions. Get another opinion when the stakes justify it.
And become interested in your health before disease forces you to become interested.
Treating Disease Isn’t Healthcare
Medicine is extraordinary at some things.
If I get hit by a truck tomorrow, don’t take me to the health-food store. Take me to the emergency department.
But emergency medicine, surgery, prescriptions and disease management should not define the entire concept of healthcare.
They are what we need when prevention wasn’t possible, wasn’t enough, wasn’t attempted — or when life simply dealt us a bad hand.
Real healthcare should begin much earlier.
It begins with you.
It begins with what you do this morning, what you eat tonight, whether you move, whether you sleep, whether you pay attention, whether you ask questions and whether you are willing to take some responsibility for the body carrying you through this life.
Doctors have a role. Hospitals have a role. Medicine has a role.
But you have the biggest role of all.
Don’t wait until somebody tells you you’re sick before you start caring about your health.
