The German healthcare system is considered one of the most expensive in the world – and simultaneously produces one of the highest chronic disease burdens. Prof. Dr. Jörg Spitz has been analysing for decades why a system that claims to promote health in reality primarily manages disease – while degrading the patient to a passive recipient.
The core critique: the healthcare system is structurally a disease system. It finances diagnoses and treatments, but barely prevention. Doctors are paid for therapies, not for keeping their patients healthy. The pharmaceutical industry has massive influence on guidelines, continuing education, and research agendas. The result: a medicine that combats symptoms rather than treating causes.
Prof. Dr. Spitz particularly criticises over-medicalisation: the increasing number of diagnoses and prescriptions does not correlate with better population health. On the contrary – many patients suffer from side effects and interactions of medications prescribed as primary therapy, even though lifestyle changes would be evidence-based more effective.
Another structural problem: Vitamin D supplementation, nutritional medicine, exercise therapy, and other preventive medical measures are barely funded in the German system – even though their effectiveness is scientifically proven. Prof. Dr. Spitz sees here a fundamental conflict of interest: prevention is good for patients, but bad for the disease industry's business model.
As a constructive alternative, Prof. Dr. Spitz promotes a model of participatory health: patients who understand their biology and actively take responsibility for their health. His goal is not to destroy the system, but to transform it through informed citizens and courageous doctors – towards a medicine that truly thinks and acts preventively.