Most people sincerely want to do better when it comes to diet, exercise, and wellness. But you are not the only one interested in your health. Others who have a vested interest in you (and your lifestyle choices) are your employers and the government, because health care costs have skyrocketed over the last ten years. One of the best ways to minimize those costs is to get you motivated to take better care of yourself. Over the last two months we’ve looked at the financial consequences of bad health to you and your employers, this month we’ll finish up by looking at your health from a government perspective.
Government
It’s time for us as a nation to recognize that the consequences of our lifestyle choices extend far beyond ourselves and our families. In the same way that a small pebble thrown into a pond makes wider and wider ripples, the cost of us not taking care of ourselves ultimately affects everyone else.
Our behaviors have led us to this point in history. In 1980, 9% of the Gross Domestic Product (our national income) was devoted to health care. In 2008, it was 16%. If we keep going down this slippery slope, there will come a time in just a few decades that health care will consume such a large portion of the national budget that we won’t be able to fund other critical entities such as education or the military.
The United States spends more per capita on health care than any other country. We are also experiencing the fastest growth rate in health care spending. Yet the United States ranks last overall among 11 industrialized countries on measures of health system quality, efficiency, access to healthcare, equity, and healthy lives. The latest compilation of dollars spent for Medicaid and Medicare are as follows:
Total Medicaid spending in 2014 — $305 billion
Total Medicare spending in 2014 – $618.7 billion
Bottom Line
Prevention is more cost‐effective and medically efficient than treatment, especially as it avoids unnecessary pain and suffering. It makes more sense economically, medically and ethically to prevent chronic disease than to try to treat it once it occurs. Prevention strategies help all people, not just those who happen to be sick. Small health improvement choices by all of us on a daily basis can have a huge effect, nationally.
