Friday, June 26, 2009

More on Universal Health Care

It seems like it's coming very soon: Obama wants to reform health care and insure all Americans. I blogged about this not too long ago and grabbed quite a bit of attention for my opinion that the real problem with American health care is that we're a horribly overweight country that's consuming too much health care as a result of being overweight. I still assert that if this country went on a diet, lost some collective weight, and took better care of ourselves, then our cost of health care would go down dramatically.

Of course, most don't agree with my assessment of the situation. I agree that there is waste, redundancy, and greed that bloats the cost of health care to its current, epic proportions. Still, I think that fat America is the root cause of all of this. Like most other people, my political opinions are shaped by my life experiences. I don't notice any of the problems that people have with getting treated because I'm very rarely sick or need medical care. I don't think that's just because I'm young. I know people my age who are overweight and need far more medical care than I do. It's pretty simple: you're fat, you put yourself in the crosshairs of more medical problems. Then, you have to deal with the beast.

The next time you're watching TV, flipping through a magazine, or looking at page on the Internet and you see an ad for some kind of drug, ask yourself if this drug treats something that would probably go away with having a healthy weight.

All throughout history, being overweight or obese was a supreme luxury. Only the richest noblemen, clergy, and business men could afford so much food that they became fat. One thing that has remained the same throughout history is that obesity is expensive. It used to be expensive just to get that much food. Now, it's expensive to maintain that lifestyle, especially considering that we all expect to live into our late 70's.

In the USA, we've reached the point where there are more obese people than overweight or healthy weight people. That means there's over 100,000,000 people who are really, effin' fat! Do you think that the cost of treating them will disappear into thin air? Do you think that the government will make it any cheaper to maintain that collective waistline? You'd be naive to think that's true.

Still, this isn't popular and for good reason. Many (Most?) don't want an answer to why health care is so expensive, especially one that implicates them. They just want free health care. People need to wake up. This won't be free and it will cost more of a fortune than we have. It doesn't matter what section of the economy we place this burden in: it's unsustainable. We need to look at our health as our responsibility and clean up our act.

Does anyone remember this post?

http://thebodyweightfiles.blogspot.com/2009/03/three-things-that-you-could-do-to-eat.html

If you look at #1 and #3 on this list, they are cheap ways to make a huge dent on your health and well-being. The question is, will we take collective responsibility for the future of our health or will we sink ourselves into debt with the rest of the world so we can stay fat when there are people in this world starving to death?

Think about it, and don't support any of these universal health care schemes.

2 comments:

DBA by necessity said...

One of the kill factors against health is consuming SUGAR. If humans wouldn't industrialized SUGAR in the 19th century, now our health problems would be less.
SUGAR is just rubbish for your body. But would you imagine if the media started a campaing against SUGAR consume? It will never occured. There are many many economic interests of enterprises making too much money selling SUGAR.

Pierini Fitness said...

Hi Justin,

I stopped by for a visit and want to tell you that in reading your blogflection, you were preaching to the choir.

Have a great weekend!