Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Thoughts About Health Care Coverage

This has been a post a long time in coming. I've had the mind to write this post for several months as a rant against a number of things but my conscience kept me from doing it. While it may shock you, my gentle readers, that I have a conscience, I do and it has troubled me these many weeks as I have tried to figure out what I've wanted to say. You see, I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings too badly. On the other hand, I want to make a strong point that I feel is well reasoned, insightful and compelling. If I were Rush Limbaugh I would just fire away and not give so much as a second thought as to who I might have offended. I don't wish to be Rush Limbaugh, however, so I feel I must reconsider how I am going to say what it is I want to say. Anyways, enough rationalizing! Get to the point man!

OK, I read this statistic a couple of weeks ago on CNN.com. A group of doctors did a very large study of Americans and heart disease. They found that in 90% of the cases where heart disease was found in a patient at least one of four other factors was also present: hypertension/high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes or smoking. In over 75% of the cases two or more of the factors were present. Why is this significant? Well, what this seems to indicate is that heart disease is tied to what are mainly lifestyle related conditions. While I understand that some people will be overweight due to thyroid conditions, some people suffer from Type 1 childhood diabeties and some people have high blood pressure for non-lifestyle related reasons (genetic) most Americans who suffer from these conditions do so because they choose to. All Americans who suffer from the condition of smoking choose to. They are lifestyle related diseases.

So, who cares, right? I mean, I don't smoke, I exercise regularly, I manage my weight, I deal with stress in my life in a healthy way and I eat a fairly balanced diet. Won't my healthier life and the quality of life it brings be its own reward? In a sense, yes. Statistically, I'll have the last laugh because I'll be the last one standing. My life expectancy, because of my lifestyle choices, is significantly longer than those with one of more of the above listed conditions. So from my point of view, some would argue, I should feel "badly" for those who make those choices and get on with the business of outliving them and enjoying the time more. From the point of view of American culture, I'm OK individually and that should be good enough. But I disagree.

Here's another statistic: 85% of the health care resources in this country are used by 1% of the people. These 1% of the people aren't shouldering 85% of the cost. Not even close. Much of that cost comes from lifestyle choices. A quadruple bypass surgery is a spendy procedure. While I'm not saying that those who take care of themselves will never need one, but the chances they will are a lot lower. So even though I live responsibly I have to foot the bill for the 2 pack a day smoker and the 100 lb overweight 30 year old and the sedentary TV watching, video-game playing, internet surfing couch potato whose daily dietary intake consists mostly of simple carhohydrates and saturated fats that are slowly killing off his pancreas and clogging his arteries. Why do I have to pay for this person's bad choices. I understand that as part of a society, I have an obligation to help care for my neighbor, but doesn't that neighbor also have a moral responsibility to not overburden me?

Now you may say, "Chad, that's all well and good but what's the big deal? You have health insurance and that'll take care of it." Those of you who are still with me have figured out where this is going by now. What about those who aren't able to afford health insurance? I spent nearly 10 years of my life uninsured because I couldn't afford it on a grad student's salary. Some say, "Well if we truly had a compassionate government, we'd have universal health care." Maybe, but that just seems like highway robbery to me. Now I have to pony up in my taxes and I have no chance of changing things. Now I'm paying for every person who makes bad lifestyle choices whether I want to or not. What really fries my bacon are the kids that aren't covered. We could cover them if we didn't have to have it our way.

I wonder what would happen if those people who had one or more of these conditions were put in their own "insurance group". Obviously, their insurance rates would skyrocket. To hell with taxing cigarettes; how about making people pay for their own health care costs! The rest of us would see a huge drop in our rates. I'll bet most of those families who can't afford coverage for their kids would be able to. However they can't. Why? Because most of us think like 17 year olds, we think we're invincible to the consequences of our actions.

You see, being overweight probably won't kill a 30 year old person tomorrow or the next day. No, its like a time bomb ticking for twenty or thirty years. These poeple say, "Yeah I need to lose weight and yeah being overweight is going to kill me but I want my Hageen Daas now. I don't have time to exercise today. I'll do it later." And they say the same thing tomorrow and the next day and the next day and then all of the sudden they're in the doctor's office going, "What? I need surgery? How did this happen?" That's if they're lucky. Too many of them miss their grandkid's first step or first day at school or graduation. Sometimes I wish every person could have a "Christmas Carol" sort of experience. Some malevolent or at least uncaring spirit would show up at their doorstep and tell them, "If you don't change the way you're living and lose 50 lbs (or stop smoking or eating crap or whatever...) you will die in six months." The spirit would then take them on a tour of their very real and unavoidable death from bad choices. How many people would choose being overweight for six more months and dying to losing 50 lbs. No one.

So why are they overweight now? And why do children in this country have to go without health care because of it?

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