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You've got it right. Not enough people can afford health insurance in this country so the doctors have to 'take care of each other' by repeated referrals, tests, etc. to someone they know from the golf club.
In addition...I just read an article stating that HALF.....yes HALF....of the the 2.2 trillion spent on healthcare every year in the U.S. is directly caused by 4 things:
Poor diet.
No exercise.
Smoking.
Alcohol intake.
4 *completely controllable lifestyle changes.
But we don't want to change our lifestyle or pay our own premiums. We'd rather have someone making 500K a year subsidize our healthcare....because they can "afford" it.
CW:
You've got it right. Not enough people can afford health insurance in this country so the doctors have to 'take care of each other' by repeated referrals, tests, etc. to someone they know from the golf club.
Woman is fragrant, soft and alluring. A consciousness to man.
Yet they can afford to play Golf, what does that tell us?to someone they know from the golf club.
I personally think that it sucks, I'd rather work hard and pay a Mortgage but know I'm covered with Health Care, and if need be, rent, than the other way around ....
CW
Do we not realise that in order to find a soul
It doesn't happen over night
if truth were to be told.
Like everything in life that's hard to achieve
you must believe!
It is a tricky calculation: Smoking causes lung cancer - which is expensive to treat, but it reduces your chance of getting alzheimers (because you die too soon), which is even more expensive to treat (long term nursing care). I saw a study once that claimed that smoking actually saves money because it produces fairly agressive quickly lethal cancers.
The problem is that eventually you will die. If nothing gets you first, you are likely to spend a long time with dementia in a nursing home (very expensive).
I do agree that a lot of US medical expenses could be avoided
Originally Posted by OhThereYouAre
In addition...I just read an article stating that HALF.....yes HALF....of the the 2.2 trillion spent on healthcare every year in the U.S. is directly caused by 4 things:
Poor diet.
No exercise.
Smoking.
Alcohol intake.
4 *completely controllable lifestyle changes.
But we don't want to change our lifestyle or pay our own premiums. We'd rather have someone making 500K a year subsidize our healthcare....because they can "afford" it.
Such is the Staus Quo in the supposedly richest country in the world. Makes you wonder if that statement refers to people, which group are they 'talking' about.
Woman is fragrant, soft and alluring. A consciousness to man.
Everyone dies.
But that doesn't mean in the meantime, they can't make appropriate preparations and changes to ensure and insure they don't become a burden to others.
"Afford" is a very loose term.
I used to sell health insurance. I ran into more people who didn't WANT to afford health insurance, than those who actually couldn't.
We'll buy cars and pay auto insurance for a depreciating asset.
But we won't insure the most appreciating asset we've got - our bodies.
Makes absolutely zero sense to me.
The current administration somehow thinks that we are going to reduce healthcare costs by extending coverage to people who don't want to buy it themselves, and to those who can't get it because of pre-existing conditions.
I'm not sure if any of our buddies in office took econ classes. Supply and demand here.....more demand with same supply means that costs will skyrocket. Folks that dont' have to pay for their own insurance, will most likely over use it. More demand. You want lower healthcare costs? This bill they are trying to shove through isn't going to do it. It's going to make it exponentially worse. You mark my words.
Here's my take. We want to reduce health care expenses, right? We need to end the frivolous law suits, we need to encourage healthy lifestyle habits. We need to start doing our own research as informed consumers rather than blindly listening to our Drs. all the time. This is a step in the right direction.
But the greatest burden on society is from the people who live to very old age with dementia (something we don't know how to avoid).
Having good insurance doesn't change the total burden on society, it just changes the accounting for that burden. The same resources are used to take care of you.
What delaying care, lost work, accidents and errors due to illness or side effects of meds, costs of misdiagnosis (dealt with this); all the cumulative costs of lack of timely care, are huge and in some case almost impossible to account for.
Uninsured people, who delay care until they reach a crisis point cost far more to treat than preventative care would cost. Yes there are some people who make poor choices in lifestyle or finances. However there are a lot of people who are living so close to the bone financially that there is nothing to chose between - they cannot afford health insurance. Period.
Yes, poor lifestyle choses cost societies a bundle; drinking, drugs, tobacco, poor eating habits, lack of exersize, these all create a huge burden and not all of it is even factored in. What of the costs of all the vehicle and work accidents and deaths due to drugs and alcohol? There are countries that attempt to control all of this -with varied success. They are usually given names like; dictatorship, totalitarian, facist, communist, theocracy.
There is a lot of misinformation, a lot of hypocondriacs (what were the figures in Texas? 3 or 4 people were responsible for some insane part of the public health costs?) and stupidity. There have been men who had solutions for those kind of problem people - wasn't there a little thing called WWll, had something to do with that?
I have discussed in other threads some of my expereince with doing my own reseach and finding a healthy, cost free means of dealing with apnea. The doctor was aware of this option but said he didn't explain to people because he didn't think they would do it - how can they if they don't know? My ex had huge added expenses to his cancer treatment because of improper post op care (that was all covered by private insurance). He suffers permanent disabilty because of it. Over prescribing (look at the percents of people on antidepressants and ADD meds), unneeded surgery (the US has the worlds highest rates of c sections and hysterectomies, along with the developed world's highest infant and maternal deaths) - this things fuel the kind of mess Ed faced and outrageous costs.
The truth is medicine is big business. And they are powerful lobbyists. Combined with the business of junk food, toxic waste, alcohol and tobacco - you'll be heard pressed to put together a large enough group of politicians of any ilk who have the balls or ovaries to do anything significant about it. We as individuals have to work, encouraging those around us to make healthy choices, to educate themselves and to take control of their own health. As consumers - insured or not - we have to treat our health care as what it really is - a product or service we employ. We need to start insisting on good information, on options, checking out our care providers and not being afraid to fire them when they aren't doing the job. If we demanded as much from our doc as from our mechanics we just might be in better shape. They have no trouble saying. "well, you didn't check the oil or get it changed regularly and you blew it" WE have no trouble saying, "you didn't do what I paid you to do".
We can only learn to love by loving. - Iris Mudoch, British writer
The greatest burden on society are those who develop conditions in direct correlation to obesity.
However, for dementia, long term care insurance is available.
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