The silver bullet of preventive care

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Rethink it.

"It is chronic conditions, like diabetes, that are driving up your health insurance rates. Better compliance reduces those costs."

No. It is poor personal choices and lifestyles, along with legal climate, that are ramping up costs! I'm not just surmising on this: the ER is on the front lines of this whole thing, and my sister is an ER doc. I hear regularly the cases of people who are there due to their own poor morals and bad behavioral choices -- alcohol & drugs, illicit sexual behavior, & some just stupidly stubborn about not taking meds that they need -- which leads to further complications. Does any nation in the world have the obesity rate we have? There are a whole gamut of these personal behavior and lifestyle things that are costing us HUGELY.

"Americans, on the whole, pay about 50% more for their health care than citizens in other industrial nations, and our outcomes are no better. We are fatter, less disciplined, more prone to chronic conditions, and we die younger."

Someone has a socialist ax to grind. Notice how we have the same problem in our schools? We throw more money per pupil at it than anywhere else, and our outcomes are continuing to slip?! It's the personal choices and lifestyles that are costing us. We need to stop lying to ourselves about some of them, stop condoning, tolerating, winking off many of them!! And most importantly, restore the fact that YOU have to pay for YOUR personal choices -- it's noone else's responsibility to pick up the pieces.

Yes, I realize some things are related to genetics or otherwise not your fault...but contrary to your statements, Dana, those do NOT cause the bulk of our excessive healthcare costs. There's no free lunch -- socialism will not cure our moral dilemmas and lack of personal responsibility. Same with lawsuits...some lawsuits have merit...but many are attempts to gold-dig and/or shift responsibility to someone else. If you really care about healthcare costs, you'd go the OPPOSITE direction: *less* socialization of it, so that those who make bad choices pay more, and those who don't, don't have to help pay for those who do!!

Posted by: techboy_z   Posted on: 11/14/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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