Lifestyle-induced chronic illness conditions increasing medial costs in the US
Sep/22/2009 06:28 Filed in: DTC
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I received a lot of eMail and Tweets on my post suggesting that people should pay for health insurance based on their lifestyle choices. Younger people tended to agree that people should pay more for health insurance if they have a poor lifestyle vs. those that eat well and exercise to control their weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. While shopping at the local market last week I noticed the pure garbage that a lot of people were putting in their carts; things like processed treats with lots of sugar and fried foods that my supermarket no offers as soon as you walk in the door. Not surprisingly the people who were doing this tended to be overweight and older.
So why do people chose unhealthy lifestyles? Well, I believe that it’s because we have so many pressures in our day to day lives that food has become a reward. “I work hard in the office and at home and if I want to eat chicken wings than I am going to do it!” I also believe that people believe that as you age you naturally gain weight when we know that this is not true. So what is the government, AMA and drug companies doing about this? Not much !
There has been very little consumer education around portion control and sugar intake. That’s one of the reasons Type 2 diabetes is increasing so rapidly. When we eat something we are often surprised to learn that the serving size is two slices of lunch meat not the usual 4 or 6 we put on sandwiches, but enough of the preaching. If we are to really control health costs in this country the public needs to get away from the mentality that the drug industry will develop a pill to help them overcome their weakness and we need to get back into shape and lose weight.
The drug industry needs to band together to launch some health consume education initiatives beyond basic disease state information. They need to work with insurers to get the word out and insurers need to devise plans to reward people who lose weight and get healthy via financial incentives. People believe that the drug industry is only interested in selling pills and keeping people unhealthy to drive sales and that perception can be changed by industry leaders banding together to start a major educational and awareness campaign about the dangers of sedentary lifestyles.
As the nature of risk has evolved, neither the funding mechanisms nor the forms ofreimbursement for health care have adapted adequately, so the system’s supply anddemand sides are both hugely distorted. Consumers are overinsured against some risksand underinsured against others; woefully short of the savings required to pay predictable,controllable expenses; and all too likely to be dealing with doctors who have big incentives totreat individual episodes of care rather than prevent illness and manage chronic conditionseffectively.
The US cannot afford to let Americans live the way they want anymore because it effects all of us. Until the system changes and a serious educational effort takes place health care costs will continue to burden everyone with costs that we can no longer afford.
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