Change Your Lifestyle and Beat the Challenged U.S. Healthcare System

Medicine and healthcare have become businesses.  Rarely today is the focus in either business on patient care.  The money involved makes it very difficult to do the right thing for the American people.  The system drove unintended consequences, but now the same people that created the unintended consequences do not have the incentives nor the conscience to fix it.  If you think the government is going to fix the problems that are growing rapidly in private healthcare, think again.  The only evidence you need is to examine the Veterans Affairs managed care debacle to have some form of proof.

I find it truly overwhelming to know that at the current rate, without changes in healthcare and a shift from current practices to the scale of criminal, by 2020 1/5th of healthcare spending, or $1 Trillion ($1,000,000,000), will be devoted to treating the consequences of obesity.  Americans are getting more and more overweight every day due to the multitude of direct and indirect government actions and decisions over the years that has the U.S. now suffering the unintended consequences.  The money involved in the business of healthcare makes it unfavorable to undo the mess we have created in our healthcare system across the U.S.   The lobbyists on the hill represent big business and congress simply does not want to fix it as the public for profit companies drive GDP in this country.  The actions of wall street and government policy run completely counter to helping and protecting the people and their best interests.  Corporations run our government.  Politicians are in place and work closely with the lobbyists to keep the corporations happy and growing.

In an Institute of Medicine analysis conducted in 2011, the data showed that in the ten (10) years from 1999-2009 that Salaries in the U.S. grew 38%, while Health Insurance Premiums grew an astounding 131%!  Hello Washington, even the under educated in this country can see that government is not making our country a better place.  Rather, they are fueling the policies that drive the poor healthcare outcomes and consequences of a system that focuses on disease management and not citizen wellness.  The difference?  Disease management drives recurring doctor and specialist office visits, a multitude of prescriptions and perpetually sick people.  The prescriptions drive dependencies.  Dependencies further perpetuate people being unhealthy.  Doctors don’t get to help people the way they thought they would when they went into medical school pure of heart with the intent of serving the greater good.  In fact, doctors cannot spend more than seven (7) minutes with a patient and that metric will continue to drop year over year.  Order a procedure – make $1,500.  Spend 45 minutes with a patient talking about how to live a healthier life – make $15!   In a 2008 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the numbers showed that primary care physicians earned about half as much as specialists.  In order to earn more, those same primary care physicians would need to see more patients every year.  Broken?  Just maybe!

However, it is the large public insurance companies that have to produce earnings aligned to Wall Street expectations that drive the policies that drive revenues, reduce costs and create the dependencies.  These are the same companies that lobby the government who in turn approves the legislation that allows premiums to grow at 3.5 times the rate salaries are increasing.

In the same Institute of Medicine study in 2011, it was noted that If prices of some of our staple goods had grown at the same rate of healthcare costs since 1945, the following would be the result:

A dozen eggs would cost $55 A gallon of milk would cost $48 Twelve oranges would cost $134

Who let this happen?  Simply, the government in collaboration with the insurance companies and big for profit companies.

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE.  THERE IS A BETTER WAY.  WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE.  

We can all change our lifestyles.  What we eat, how much we exercise,  how well we sleep and filling our lives with love and happiness all have a huge impact on our health and well being.  The crazy thing about our choices in food, exercise, sleep, happiness and love is that they are not directly controlled or directed by for profit businesses and government.  These are choices that are in OUR control.  Living healthier is OUR choice.