Inappropriate Priorities Lead To Triple-Edged Health Crisis

In today’s society, being grossly overweight to obese and living an unhealthy lifestyle has become status quo. It’s almost acceptable, with most people generally apathetic about it. But if people don’t change their unhealthy lifestyles, the consequences will cause them to pay dearly for it in more ways than they ever imagined.
The majority of Americans are involved in some very disturbing lifestyle “habit-patterns”.
Frequent and recurring episodes of: Overeating, eating high fat, high sugar and fast foods on a daily basis, not exercising the prescribed minimum smoking, abusing alcohol, over-the-counter and prescription drugs, speeding, aggressive driving, not wearing a seat belt, and running red lights and stop signs, listening to deafeningly loud music with earphones, leading a rushed, high stress, lack of relaxation/meditation daily schedule.
The bottom line for the average American’s lifestyle? Purely unhealthy.
All the efforts to coax people into healthier lifestyles and all the legislation and programs to change the health delivery system for the better have failed and are still failing.
Add these factors together and you get the necessity for drastic change. Drastic change is imperative. Drastic change is a matter of when not if.
If you understand that our system is dramatically over utilized by a population whose majority is extremely unhealthy and becoming more unhealthy, then the coming reality of a “New Order” of mandatory merit-rated health care insurance for all citizens and of lifestyle tracking & profiling, becomes very real.
Americans have been grossly negligent about their own health and lifestyles. They have refused to acknowledge that first and foremost, health is their own responsibility, not some health care insurance companyy's or doctor’s or hospital's responsibility or some pharmaceutical company’s responsibility!
Needless to say, most Americans continue to do the things that make them fat and sick and injure or harm their bodies, and, continue to avoid the activities that are healthy and can prevent illness or injury.
It appears that sloth, gluttony and irresponsible behavior are the favored lifestyle habit-patterns and the following statistics prove it.
• The U S Surgeon General reports that approximately 40% of US adults use tobacco regularly and almost half of teens ages 13 - 19 smoke.
• The UCLA RAND Center found that smoking leads to a 21% rise in health care costs and 28% rise in medication costs (an average $230 per year) and that more than 430,000 die each year from smoking related illnesses.
• The USSG reports that about 65% of Americans are overweight to obese.
• The Centers for Disease Control report:
- About 13% of US children ages 8 - 16 are overweight to obese.
- Less than 15% of US adults exercise 60 minutes or more a minimum of 3 times each week.
- Less than 10% of kids ages 8 - 18 exercise for 60 minutes or more 3 times a week.
- More than 300,000 people die each year from illnesses caused by or made worse by obesity.
• The UCLA RAND Center found that obesity raises a person’s health care costs by 36% and medication costs by 77% (an average $395 per year) and they have 30% - 50% more chronic health problems.
• According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U S spending for health care will top 3 trillion by 2010.
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts reports that 57% of all illness & injury is a direct result of lifestyle.
• World Health Organization:
- U.S. citizens ranked 37 among 191 nations in ability to improve health.
- Over 15% of U.S. Gross Domestic Product spent on correcting health problems.
- Over 72% of all deaths in U.S. are the result of heart disease, lung disease, diabetes & degenerative diseases.
- The very expensive U.S. drug-based system is NOT reducing the rate at which conditions become chronic and continue to plague the U.S.
- Such chronic conditions are preventable for the most part and are primarily resulting from unhealthy practices.
Combine this with the statistic that over 42 million American citizens are without any health insurance and you have a triple crisis: a vast majority of the population leading extremely unhealthy lifestyles, multitudes without health insurance and a healthcare delivery system that’s over priced and over burdened.
But not so shocking when you think about it. Because the majority of people value, have the time, money and desire for new clothing styles, new vehicles, weekly entertainment, new furniture, hair styles, new electronics and gadgets, vacations, lottery tickets, casinos, lunches and diners out all week, and on and on. But when it comes to valuing, spending time, effort and money on preventive health practices and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, the only things people always seem to have are excuses for why they ‘can’t’ or ‘don’t’.
The problem is that these lifestyle choices are resulting in exploding numbers of people with chronic illness and disease, and, with frequent and recurring episodes of crisis care resulting from frequent and recurring illness and injury. The continually poor lifestyle choices (sloth and gluttony and irresponsible actions) has proven to be extraordinarily expensive and getting more expensive, more than just financially. It is stretching and straining the conventional medical care establishment and health insurance industry in this country beyond its capabilities.
The overall situation has even digressed to the point where “Health Care” in today’s society has actually become a misnomer. It has become nothing more than illness intervention, symptom suppression, condition control and disease determination.
This is not health care. This is "crisis care". It is this type of approach to health care that has also lended to the mess we’re in today, both in personal health and in the system of care.
Real health care involves maintaining all activities of daily living and lifestyle in healthy ways. Anything less than this, is less than healthy. Anything less than healthy, is a life of illness intervention, symptom suppression, condition control…a life of crisis care.
Just look at most Americans. They are less than healthy and spend a good deal of time in the battles of illness intervention, symptom suppression and condition control. For the majority, their mind-sets about their health have even “devolved” to the point where they wear their ailments, conditions, disabilities as “badges of prestige”! It has become “prestigious” to be ill!
Now, allow me to change gears and ask a very serious question: If all these popular weight loss diets, books and programs being mass marketed over the years have really been effective, why and how have the above statistics come about? Because most people do not value and do not place a priority on preventive health practices and living a healthy lifestyle!
To say there is an urgent need for a change in the priorities and unhealthy lifestyle issues that most Americans need to address, is an understatement. These are issues that are addressed in my book and that must be faced and dealt with by the majority of the population.
• American enculturation: sloth, gluttony, apathy: wasting money, ruining health, cutting lives short.
• The absolute truth about why “weight loss” diets, programs and pills only get temporary results
• Real, lifetime results from lifestyle and “habit-pattern” changes.
Based on this information, the health care insurance corporations' can continually justify double-digit % annual increases in premiums, co-payments and deductibles, with the argument that they deserve higher premiums and fees to off-set and minimize "losses" against a public continually engaging in behaviors that continually make them sick and unhealthy, thus resulting in "over-utilizing" of their health insurance policies and the health care system. Yet, ironically, health care insurance corporations' profits and the annual incomes of their brokers who sell their policies continue to increase dramatically, every year!

Because of this, more than ever before, it is an absolute necessity that Americans wake up to the fact that if they do not change their unhealthy lifestyles, health care insurers, with the aid of legislators, will institute more dramatic and costly changes to health care insurance.
• Using “Colossus” - the health insurance industry’s well-kept secret - to track lifestyles and issue “Lifestyle Grades”.
• Merit-Rated Health Insurance Premiums based on these “Lifestyle Grades”.
• Imposing “Lifestyle-Contributed Surcharges on Care”.
Impossible? More like very probable. The technology for the health care insurance industry to implement such policies is in place. The mind-set of legislators for such policies is in place. And think, again, about how much it would increase the annual profits of the health care insurance corporations, who have the most effective lobbyists in Congress.
Understand, “Impossible” is something I heard back in 1999-2000 when I anticipated that the unhealthy lifestyles and growing numbers of obese Americans would soon result in the health care insurance industry and legislators imposing new regulations.

I knew it would start with what I termed “Mandatory Minimum Merit-Rated Health Insurance”, which I first revealed while on a speaking circuit locally in Boston’s North Shore. The idea received laughs and snickers. Seven years later, no-one is laughing and snickering, because in April of 2007, Massachusetts passed it into law: “Mandatory Minimum Health Insurance”. My laughable, “impossible” idea had become reality. Now, other states are considering such a measure and our presidential candidates all have some sort of version for it as a national policy.
The “New Order” of health care insurance and health care has started.