The insurance problem isnât the real problem. It is a symptom of our unhealthy eating and lifestyle. Attempting to solve this or at least lessen the effects should be an issue where the Democrats and Republicans could work together. This wouldnât be a quick fix but a long term solution. For older Americans changing lifestyle and dietary habits would be hard, but changing attitudes with children will be much easier. They are captive for 9 to 10 months out of the year, within a generation we could have a healthier group of young people coming out of school with the habits and education to have a better chance of keeping the healthy lifestyles. The major killers in our society are heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and others all are significantly less in people who eat healthy, low fat, smaller portions and more active people. Cutting down on these diseases would totally change the argument on health care. We have seen success in changing habits with tobacco and drinking and driving and changing our eating habits is something achievable if our politicians can get behind this. We have also seen how the large food and fast food corporations have changed our eating habits. It can work and I believe is the best and most logical solutionâ¦lower health care cost and a healthier population. A true win win situation. I put this in economics because it would change the economic conditions of Americans and American companies and our government for the better.
That is a simplistic view of the problem. Unhealth lifestyle is a cause of high health care cost, but without some mandates and competition, insurance and health providers have no incentives to lower cost, merely passing it to patients and governments and taking a bigger cut of the cost as profits. There is a lesson to be learned from the system in Hawaii. It is not cheap, but the population overall is healthier and they get care much sooner than later (which results in lower cost by avoiding expensive emergency room services). It works, however some government mandates are required in order to provide even the working class some basic level of health care in the form of family doctors and preventive medicine. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/health/policy/17hawaii.html
I agree with you for what we should do right now. For the long term we should also encourage healthy living. My observation of the problem might seem simplistic but correcting the problem will be quite a challenge.
Certainly healthier lifestyles is good all the way around, but the leading cause of spiraling costs is FRAUD, plain and simple.
a friend of mine had to get a physical and a simple blood test in order to play sports at his college. cost = $1,200 this is outright robbery and its getting worse everywhere at an exponential rate.
No legitimate insurance company would allow $1200 for a physical. I pay all my health care as a trader and the BC/BS policy I have allows me one annual physical per year up to $300. The doctor can bill whatever he/she wants but BC/BS will only allow the usual customary amount. They allow less than $200 for my physical.
you are assuming he has insurance///I had to get a physical once and the DR told me it would cost $450. the scumbag then charged me almost $1300, since i did not record the call (who records calls) i had no proof and was left with the option of paying it or getting sued. this dr should be in jail for 100 years.
I would have paid $450 and made him sue me for the rest. The real problem with health care is that there is no real competition. Insurance pays the bill. If there was no insurance the price would be much lower. Patients would shop for the best price(like everything else) and read reviews on the doctor. You think it is bad now? Just wait until Obamacare is instituted. Also, there needs to be some sort of malpractice limits.
You're dealing with stupid people. They can't hold a thought inside their minds for more than a second. Then it's back to watching toxic garbage on TV. Just work on getting yours and let the drivel do their own thing. If they bother you shoot them.
Since the fucking Republican love to deregulate everything, why didn't the maggots deregulate Health Insurance and Medical Schools? When it comes to public policy you people don't have a leg to stand on. And if you hadn't noticed, Obama is more republican than most republicans in congress. I wake up every day and it appears we're chugging on the same path as Bush put us on. Useless wars to secure the safety of a little shitty foreign nation that has its agents and lobbyists spying and dictating everything we do.