US Spends More in Health Care Costs, But Not Healthier

Health Care CostsPolitico reported about a month ago that while the US spends a lot more on health care per person than any other industrialized country, we are not significantly healthier.

According to the article, health care costs in the US are almost $8,000 per person while the second place country is just over $5,000 per person. That’s a difference of almost $3,000 per person. That’s huge.

One thing they point to is that the US uses a lot more expensive technology, like MRIs and CT scans. If we have and use all of this expensive technology, and it isn’t making us any healthier, then what’s the point?

I also know that a lot of drugs are prescribed that aren’t needed, like prescriptions for antibiotics when you have a viral infection. The antibiotics won’t do anything to the virus but they will mess up the balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut leading to more illness down the road.

How do we lower health costs?

The easiest and most effective ways to lower our health costs are to take better care of our bodies. We need to give our bodies what they need – nutrition, water, exercise, sleep – and stop polluting our bodies with pollution and toxic substances.

Eat and Drink Better

Nutrition means eating real food – organic fruits and vegetables for the most part. If you want something sweet, make sure it is made from a sugar that is as real and unprocessed as you can get, not high fructose corn syrup and definitely not toxic artificial sweeteners. If you are diabetic, eat something low in sugar. The artificial sweeteners aren’t helping you any.

Drink water instead of sugary drinks. Some juice and tea is OK sometimes, but water needs to be the bulk of what we drink. Water is necessary to hydrate the body. If you are dehydrated you will lose some functionality. Nutrition won’t get to the cells, waste products won’t be carried away, you won’t be able to think clearly, and your muscles will lose some of their strength.

Don’t count on our government to protect us when it comes to our food. If they do anything, it will just be an empty gesture. There’s too much campaign money at stake for them to do anything meaningful.

I saw yesterday that New York’s Mayor Bloomberg wants to limit the size of sugary drinks that can be sold at places other than grocery stores. They say it is to fight obesity but it is an empty gesture. People will buy two bottles instead of one or go to a grocery store where they can buy a larger bottle.

Move Your Body

You may be tired of hearing that you need to exercise. You don’t have to exercise hard, just move. Muscle contractions help to pump the blood through your veins. The also pump the lymph system to remove toxins from your body.

Walking can help to strengthen your bones. The compression of our bones every time we take a step triggers them to regenerate themselves.

Get Some Sleep

Getting enough sleep at night is also critical for your health. Most of our healthy body processes, like digestion, processing fat, body repair, and converting short-term memories into long-term memory, all take place when the body sleeps. If you simply cannot get enough sleep at night then take some time during the day to nap or meditate.

We Have the Power to Change

We are being programmed to think that we don’t have the power to change things. We actually do have a lot of control if we choose to exercise it.

The food that is available to us in grocery stores is probably something that we have the most control over. We vote for something every time we buy it. If we want products without GMO ingredients and high fructose corn syrup, all we have to do is not buy them.

If the manufacturers cannot sell the garbage, they will stop making it. They are in business to make money. If we make it so that they can only make money by producing quality products, then they will make quality products.

The more we help to educate our friends and families about this, the more power we have. We don’t have to get the government to do something here. We can do it ourselves.

What are your thoughts? Leave me a comment below and share this post with your friends.

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