 "There's no way that we are going to halt the upward spiral of health care costs until we attack the causes rather than apply the fixes," What are these preventative steps each person can take to improve his own health and the health care budget of all Americans? They are as follows: • A 30% reduction in salt/sodium intake could save as much as $18 billion in health care costs for a variety of cardiovascular diseases that too much salt contribute to, such as hypertension, high blood pressure and others. • Too much sugar leads to obesity, which is responsible for many serious illnesses, including diabetes. According to a report published in Health Affairs journal, obesity is responsible for 9%, or about $150 billion of all medical spending. • Alcohol use which is excessive can be costly, health-wise and financially. According to the CDC, too much alcohol use is the third leading lifestyle-related cause of death in the United States every year. It is estimated that the total direct cost to our health care system from alcohol associated health issues is approximately $45.5 billion. "On top of that is the indirect costs to society from lost work productivity and driving fatalities." • The leading cause of preventable disability, disease and death in the United States today is smoking, according to the CDC. It is estimated that about 44 million Americans smoke cigarettes today, which is leading to 443,000 premature deaths each year, whether directly from smoking or from second-hand smoke. And the bad effects of smoking linger on for years. "Even if somebody quit smoking ten years ago, they could still be facing health problems." And the financial burden on our health care system is astronomical. The CDC estimates that $96 billion of our health care bill is spent on smoking-related problems, and an additional $97 billion is spent on the indirect smoking related issues. • Pollution, whether from pesticides, waste products of our energy production, or other gasses that we breath, are a large cause of chronic bronchitis, asthma and premature mortality which has contributed an additional $120 billion worth of health care expenditures per year. These are hidden, but very real costs of energy and food production which we should take into consideration when making health care expenditure decisions and who and how we should pay for it. Home |