Healthcare

"We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us" - Walt Kelly

An interesting article at NewScientist.com makes the claim that Healthcare revamp won't cure America. It’s true that we have a problem. “Politicians are trying to revamp a system that spends around twice as much per person on healthcare as most European countries, while getting worse results overall, lagging on measures such as life expectancy at birth and infant mortality.”

But two new studies claim the problem is not the US Healthcare system, but rather with the poor habits of Americans. "One of the main reasons that US healthcare is so expensive is that we are sicker than other people."

One study concludes “that the blame lies largely with high rates of chronic disease caused by poor diet, lack of exercise and the lingering effects of tobacco use from a time when smoking was more prevalent in the US than in Europe.” The other study agrees and also found that “in some respects – screening and treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease, for example – the US healthcare system is actually performing well.”

Bottom Line

Politicians are claiming that US Healthcare can save big bucks with more “pre-screening” of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But Shannon Brownlee of the New America Foundation in Washington DC says, "[pre-screening is] not going to fix the underlying problems of poverty, poor diet, lack of exercise and smoking, which are the biggest determinants of health."

In the US we drive short distances instead of walking. Just yesterday a colleague from Poland suggested we walk a mile to lunch. That’s crazy, I replied, so we drove instead.

Also in America the great Industrial Food complex makes it cheaper to eat junk food than healthy food. I can get ramen or chips quite cheap. I have to spend real money to buy organic at Whole Foods.

The healthcare system does not insure good health habits. My wife was making real progress meeting with a nutritionist to lose weight until the Insurance Company changed its mind and decided to stop covering the cost.