Take
care of your own health, avoid hospitals, ask more questions, make your own
decisions and take responsibility for your own healthcare. Your health
will benefit, as will your bank accounts.
A
New Era of Responsibility
At
his inauguration, Obama declared that "What is required of us now is a new
era of responsibility." That was about three weeks before signing
a bill to spend a massive $800 billion in tax-payer money (plus interest
that accumulates) that the government currently does not have. Interesting,
if this is supposed to serve as an example...
As
long-term readers know, I do believe in the importance of personal responsibility.
People who have Health
Savings Accounts are taking responsibility for some of their own medical
expenses. They are taking responsibility for putting aside money to
cover future medical expenses. They take responsibility for choosing
medical services that offer the best price, convenience, and value.
It may sound corny, but really the whole nation really owes you a debt of
gratitude for what you do to better society.
Take
Personal Responsibility for Your Health
At
the National Consumer Driven Healthcare Summit, Elizabeth Bewley gave a fascinating
talk titled "Consumers Need to Become CEOs of Their Own Health and Health
Care". She explained how our modern healthcare system is set up to benefit
interests other than you. For instance, she spoke of a condition called
ICU Psychosis, that affects many patients after spending time in intensive
care. This problem manifests as a form of delirium or psychotic episodes,
and is caused by the typical conditions in ICU - bright lights, noise, sleep
deprivation, confusion about night and day, etc.
The
first step in being your own healthcare CEO is to take care of your health.
Simply staying out of the hospital could save your life. The Institute
of Medicine reports that medical errors cause about 100,000 deaths annually,
making this the third leading cause of death. Hospital-contracted infections
kill another 100,000 a year. Adverse drug events kill an additional
125,000. Thus, approximately 17% of total deaths in the U.S. may be
attributable to medical care.
Up
to one half of prescribed drugs do not work for patients as intended, and
physicians rarely explain possible adverse side effects or how long the patient
should take the drug. Bottom line, the system is not individual-centric,
but rather built for the needs of the providers. To take more control,
consumers need to ask more questions; create a personal health record; and
realize that they, not the doctor, are in charge of their own health.
Healthy
Eating
A
new study was just published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
titled Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic,
hunter-gatherer type diet. Humans evolved over millions of
years as hunter-gatherers, and only very recently did humans begin eating
grains, dairy, vegetable oil, sugar, and other modern foods. (10,000
years may seem like a lot of time, but it is nothing as far as evolution is
concerned).
This
was only the 4th human study to be done on the Paleolithic-type diet, and
like the others it found dramatic results. Those who ate this way had
lower blood pressure, better glucose tolerance, less insulin, greater insulin
sensitivity, and better lipid profiles.
As
you may know, I edit The Paleo Diet Newsletter (www.ThePaleoDiet.com),
where we regularly discuss how this way of eating optimizes health and body
composition. People lose weight, their digestion works well, their joints
stop hurting, they have greater mental energy, and their risk of cardiovascular
disease and autoimmune disease plummet. Diet is the single most important
factor in your health, and we really are what we eat.
We're
Here to Help!
If
the current economy is affecting you, and your looking for ways to cut expenses,
maybe we can help. If you're in good health and want to see if there
is a less expensive health insurance plan you may want to switch to, just
let us know. We'll see what options are available, and help you through
the process.
Thanks
as always for reading, and for letting us also help your friends and business
associates.
Take care,
Wiley
Long
President - HSA
for America
