Mary Mostert
Let's improve health instead of health care
By Mary Mostert
With Iraq sliding off the front pages, the rising issue in the media appears to be: What can we do about these tax gobbling programs for the elderly — Social Security and Medicare?
In an article on the subject, USA Today listed as #1 in its suggestions to "cut payments to doctors, hospitals and other providers." That, of course, has already been done several times. Currently, most doctors lose money on every Medicaid or Medicare patient. And, according to doctors I've talked to about this, the most demanding and least cooperative of all their patients are those who pay nothing for their services. Those patients also often have the worst overweight and lifestyle problems. America is the only nation in the world where its poverty class is more overweight than its wealthy class.
Other solutions suggested included increasing premiums, deductibles or co-payments, reducing the number of treatments Medicare will cover such as high-tech and very expensive treatments that didn't even exist a few years ago. Some have suggested that non-life-threatening ailments should not be routinely corrected with expensive high-tech operations at public expense. Medicare covers "all medical treatments that are reasonable and necessary." An emergency appendectomy or treatment for a life-threatening heart attack, cancer or accident certainly should be covered, but should we continue to increase an out-of-control national debt to borrow money for expensive operations and treatments for conditions caused by gross overweight just to make someone more comfortable?
USA Today ended its article with: "The real answer for Medicare, many on both sides argue, lies in improving the nation's entire health care system. Determining which treatments work best and are most cost-effective, and eliminating coverage of treatments deemed ineffective, could produce savings and improve medical outcomes."
Actually, probably the best solution lies in a very simple approach within reach of everyone — improving the nation's HEALTH to reduce the cost of publicly funded medical care.
From time to time I discuss health issues with my orthopedic surgeon son who told me in one conversation that he could generally tell how long it will take for a patient to recover from an operation. Then he noted, "If the patient is both grossly overweight and smokes — they won't heal at all." There have been times when he has refused to even operate on a patient that is grossly overweight until they lose some of the weight
I thought of his comment recently when an 83 year old friend tripped and fell down a flight of stairs. Amazingly, he didn't break any bones, but he did pull tendons out of both knee joints, which required extensive orthopedic surgery to repair. Naturally, he could not walk, or even stand and the night of the surgery his worried family feared he would never walk again and certainly, would never be able to live comfortably in his home again, which has numerous stairs. They spent much of the time during the operation making plans to take care of him somewhere other his own home or figure out how to put an elevator in it. .
A veteran of World War II, having survived the invasion of Normandy, he has remained in good physical condition. . He doesn't drink alcohol or smoke. As a gardener, he eats plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits, and prefers water to soda pop. . He also eats whole grain cereals and breads while keeping up with some of the most recent nutritional research and natural products, such as Noni juice and to improve his health.
His doctors and therapists warned him repeatedly that he could not, at his age, expect to heal quickly and that he could not expect to be able to even get out of his braces for at least 3 months. However, within a month of his accident, with the help of a therapist, he had learned how to walk up and down stairs at his house, without bending his knees, and was experiencing no pain. In less than 3 months he is not only out of the braces, but walking around the neighborhood, driving his car and working in his garden.
Just luck? Not really. He combined a healthy lifestyle, new products that have been developed to help the body produce healthy new cells, while strictly adhering to the advice of medical advisors and maintaining a positive attitude to make a remarkable recovery that has amazed his doctors and therapists. A few days after the operation, he had his liquid calcium brought to the hospital, along with Healthy Joint, a product made of Tahitian Noni Juice and glucosamine which seemed to reduce the pain and speed recovery.
Perhaps the time has come to stop using tax dollars to subsidize and excuse the unhealthy lifestyles of many Americans. Some years ago, insurance companies began offering lower rates for people who did not smoke. Why should a man like my friend be paying the same price for his Medicare premium (paid out of his Social Security) and Medi-gap insurance, as those who are overweight, eating junk food, smoking, drinking or taking illegal drugs?
In 1998 President Clinton announced a goal to "eliminate the disparities in six areas of health status experienced by racial and ethnic minority populations." At the time the problem was treated as a problem caused somehow by racial discrimination. It is true that, for example, the death rate for cancer for black men is about 50 percent higher than it is for white men, with the death rate from prostrate cancer more than double that of white men, it is not because of their skin color which they can't change. Black males in America have the lowest intake of vegetables and fruits of any group in the nation. Almost three quarters of the blacks in prison are there because of drug related behavior and obesity is far more prevalent among blacks than among whites and Asians in America.
When the cause of much of the illness in America is coming from too much drinking, poor eating habits, smoking, casual sex and illegal drugs — the problem obviously isn't poverty or the color of a person's skin. Anyone with the money to drink, smoke, chase around for sex and drugs has enough money to eat properly and exercise regularly to improve their health.
Poor health cannot be improved by government programs. It can be changed for most people if they made better choices in their life style.
© Mary Mostert
With Iraq sliding off the front pages, the rising issue in the media appears to be: What can we do about these tax gobbling programs for the elderly — Social Security and Medicare?
In an article on the subject, USA Today listed as #1 in its suggestions to "cut payments to doctors, hospitals and other providers." That, of course, has already been done several times. Currently, most doctors lose money on every Medicaid or Medicare patient. And, according to doctors I've talked to about this, the most demanding and least cooperative of all their patients are those who pay nothing for their services. Those patients also often have the worst overweight and lifestyle problems. America is the only nation in the world where its poverty class is more overweight than its wealthy class.
Other solutions suggested included increasing premiums, deductibles or co-payments, reducing the number of treatments Medicare will cover such as high-tech and very expensive treatments that didn't even exist a few years ago. Some have suggested that non-life-threatening ailments should not be routinely corrected with expensive high-tech operations at public expense. Medicare covers "all medical treatments that are reasonable and necessary." An emergency appendectomy or treatment for a life-threatening heart attack, cancer or accident certainly should be covered, but should we continue to increase an out-of-control national debt to borrow money for expensive operations and treatments for conditions caused by gross overweight just to make someone more comfortable?
USA Today ended its article with: "The real answer for Medicare, many on both sides argue, lies in improving the nation's entire health care system. Determining which treatments work best and are most cost-effective, and eliminating coverage of treatments deemed ineffective, could produce savings and improve medical outcomes."
Actually, probably the best solution lies in a very simple approach within reach of everyone — improving the nation's HEALTH to reduce the cost of publicly funded medical care.
From time to time I discuss health issues with my orthopedic surgeon son who told me in one conversation that he could generally tell how long it will take for a patient to recover from an operation. Then he noted, "If the patient is both grossly overweight and smokes — they won't heal at all." There have been times when he has refused to even operate on a patient that is grossly overweight until they lose some of the weight
I thought of his comment recently when an 83 year old friend tripped and fell down a flight of stairs. Amazingly, he didn't break any bones, but he did pull tendons out of both knee joints, which required extensive orthopedic surgery to repair. Naturally, he could not walk, or even stand and the night of the surgery his worried family feared he would never walk again and certainly, would never be able to live comfortably in his home again, which has numerous stairs. They spent much of the time during the operation making plans to take care of him somewhere other his own home or figure out how to put an elevator in it. .
A veteran of World War II, having survived the invasion of Normandy, he has remained in good physical condition. . He doesn't drink alcohol or smoke. As a gardener, he eats plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits, and prefers water to soda pop. . He also eats whole grain cereals and breads while keeping up with some of the most recent nutritional research and natural products, such as Noni juice and to improve his health.
His doctors and therapists warned him repeatedly that he could not, at his age, expect to heal quickly and that he could not expect to be able to even get out of his braces for at least 3 months. However, within a month of his accident, with the help of a therapist, he had learned how to walk up and down stairs at his house, without bending his knees, and was experiencing no pain. In less than 3 months he is not only out of the braces, but walking around the neighborhood, driving his car and working in his garden.
Just luck? Not really. He combined a healthy lifestyle, new products that have been developed to help the body produce healthy new cells, while strictly adhering to the advice of medical advisors and maintaining a positive attitude to make a remarkable recovery that has amazed his doctors and therapists. A few days after the operation, he had his liquid calcium brought to the hospital, along with Healthy Joint, a product made of Tahitian Noni Juice and glucosamine which seemed to reduce the pain and speed recovery.
Perhaps the time has come to stop using tax dollars to subsidize and excuse the unhealthy lifestyles of many Americans. Some years ago, insurance companies began offering lower rates for people who did not smoke. Why should a man like my friend be paying the same price for his Medicare premium (paid out of his Social Security) and Medi-gap insurance, as those who are overweight, eating junk food, smoking, drinking or taking illegal drugs?
In 1998 President Clinton announced a goal to "eliminate the disparities in six areas of health status experienced by racial and ethnic minority populations." At the time the problem was treated as a problem caused somehow by racial discrimination. It is true that, for example, the death rate for cancer for black men is about 50 percent higher than it is for white men, with the death rate from prostrate cancer more than double that of white men, it is not because of their skin color which they can't change. Black males in America have the lowest intake of vegetables and fruits of any group in the nation. Almost three quarters of the blacks in prison are there because of drug related behavior and obesity is far more prevalent among blacks than among whites and Asians in America.
When the cause of much of the illness in America is coming from too much drinking, poor eating habits, smoking, casual sex and illegal drugs — the problem obviously isn't poverty or the color of a person's skin. Anyone with the money to drink, smoke, chase around for sex and drugs has enough money to eat properly and exercise regularly to improve their health.
Poor health cannot be improved by government programs. It can be changed for most people if they made better choices in their life style.
© Mary Mostert
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