Every conversation I hear in the news about healthcare is the fight to make sure everyone has health insurance. That everyone is ‘covered.’ We spend $3.6 Trillion on this endeavor of making sure everyone has some type of coverage. What does this really mean? Is this really the answer to our failing healthcare system? I would say, no.
Just because everyone has health insurance does not mean everyone is healthy. Someone who smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day, lives off soft drinks and fast food, never works out, and is mentally depressed can have the very best health insurance available, but are they healthy? No. Why are spending so much time and effort trying to establish a program that does not have everyone’s best interest in mind? Our best interests are not making sure we only have to pay $10,000 when we have that open heart surgery that was caused by our unhealthy lifestyle. Our best interests are not making sure those 7 different types of medications are somewhat affordable so we can continue taking them for the rest of our lives. Stop that nonsense.
Our best interests are being healthy and staying out of the dang hospital in the first place. Hospitals are there for ‘sick’ care. Sure, we all have accidents we can’t predict such as a car wreck. Actually, we will have far fewer occurrences of this once autonomous vehicles proliferate our roads. Can’t wait for that! But back to health, the majority of the conditions we go to the doctor for are PREVENTABLE! This means we can alter our daily lives and actually prevent the conditions that send us to the hospital. Instead of having that open heart surgery to bypass some arteries clogged with french fry grease, we can choose to have an active lifestyle and healthy diet. It’s not hard at all once you get the hang of it. People who make the switch to a clean & healthy life never regret it and never go back. No one likes being fat and lazy. If you are one of those people reading this right now, you know that deep down, you want to be healthy. You want to lose some fat and get lean. You want to stop eating that junk food and stop smoking those cigarettes. Well, you know what? All it takes is a decision. Each day you simply need to focus on being better than you were the day before. Cut out the crap and live a better life. Boom. Then you dramatically decrease your chances of that open heart surgery.
So let’s play a game called “Flip the table” and that table is our current health insurance industry. What if, instead of spending $3.6 Trillion on ‘Sick’ care and the mission to make sure everyone has ‘coverage.’ let’s spend that money to make sure people stay healthy. I’m talking about a real campaign here. Not one of these public awareness programs that teach about the negative effects of obesity. I’m talking about a grassroots, community-driven, individual initiative to live a better life, starting with nutrition and fitness.
I’m convinced that if we incentivized people to eat better and workout, our nation as a whole would be healthier. That’s a no-brainer. Let’s do it then.