Is healthcare itself the biggest tap?

J Health Behav Med Hist 2025-13.

Is healthcare itself the biggest tap?

Robert C. van de Graaf, MD, director
MEDTCC Institute for Health, Behaviour, Medicine and its History, The Netherlands

We love to tell each other the fairy tale of the tap and the mop.
Unhealthy behaviour – smoking, drinking, snacking, sitting, scrolling, sniffing, smoking weed, popping pills – is the tap, with the addictive industry behind it. The government has to turn it off, because our patients cannot do it themselves. And we as healthcare professionals? We neatly mop up the consequences. With pills, puffs, surgeries, therapy, sick leave guidance, at home or in the clinic.

But what if we have been mopping for years with the tap wide open, and in the meantime have ourselves become the biggest tap? Healthcare is no longer just an emergency repair. Healthcare has become a consumer industry. Addictive. Comforting. Instantly available. And free; a right. A constant stream of comfort and reassurance, packaged as treatment. And as long as we keep believing that healthcare is the solution, we sustain the real problem. Even worse: we make it worse.

We consume ourselves sick
Our lifestyle problems are, at their core, consumption problems. We smoke for calming down. We drink for relaxation. We eat for comfort or convenience. We sniff for energy. We pop pills or smoke weed to sleep. We scroll to escape. We sit because it feels good. We use what is offered to us. Not out of weakness, but because everything around us is designed to make us consume. The industry supplies, the environment facilitates, society normalizes.

And healthcare? It reassures. It says: this is understandable. And above all: we’ll fix it for you if your behavior causes problems. Whoever has severe obesity gets gastric surgery or a GLP-1 drug. Whoever sleeps badly gets a pill. Whoever is exhausted is signed off sick. Whoever worries gets therapy. Whoever sits too much gets physiotherapy.

Healthcare as addiction
Healthcare is no longer the safety net for exceptions, but the standard response to everyday consumer behaviour. We have turned behaviour into diagnosis and discomfort into demand for care. In doing so, healthcare itself has become a product; an addictive form of consumption. One that offers short-term relief, but lets the real problem persist.

The more we “solve,” the less urgency people feel to change their behaviour. Motivation disappears. Dependence grows. And that may well be the most important side effect. But unfortunately, it’s not listed in the leaflet.

Healthcare keeps other taps open
Even more painfully: because we keep repairing behaviour, we also keep other taps open. The tobacco industry need not worry as long as there is smoking cessation care. Fast food chains keep thriving as long as we “treat” obesity. The chair stays popular as long as back pain is insured. Addictive apps keep luring as long as screen addiction is simply a diagnosis. And we keep drinking because addiction care is waiting in the wings.

We think we are mopping, but we are keeping the system running. We make it possible for others to keep their taps open. Our message is: live as you like, healthcare is ready. We are no longer a counterforce. We have become part of the addiction.

The biggest tap is medical care. Care is necessary, but care is also powerful. And whoever holds power carries responsibility. If we keep using that power to soften, reward, and reassure consumer behavior, then we are not part of the solution, but part of the problem. Then we are the biggest tap in the system: a tap that sells comfort instead of offering healthy direction. That fuels dependence instead of strengthening autonomy. That gives other taps free rein… while continuing to mop.

Do we truly want change? Then we must not become even better at medical repair, but braver in behavioural confrontation. Not more care, but more courage. Not mopping with policy, but finally turning off the tap. And that tap? That is us. That is what must be turned down much further first. As long as care keeps flowing the way it does now, all the other taps will stay open. And then we will drown – ever more comfortably, but ever deeper.

Translation from:

https://www.artsenauto.nl/is-de-zorg-zelf-de-grootste-kraan/