Health Care Reform At The Micro

Certainly there is something to be said for each individual taking it upon themselves to lead a reasonably healthy lifestyle. That would include decent food choices, exercise, and other - stress reduction, not smoking, less drinking etc.

It is not the only answer as we know. We are subject to old age and genetic sicknesses. We work with the hand we are dealt.

I suspect there are some people out there who reason that if individual x takes the perfected route with food, exercise and such then they would arrive at old age with minimum wear and tear, not on the body, but on the medical system. So life becomes an exercise in making the strategic lifestyle choices.

This would run parallel to many religious beliefs, right. If person x could selectively choose to have purely altruistic thoughts and then act on them in the most generous way, then they would arrive at heaven's door. Same answer here - life becomes an exercise in making strategic spiritual choices.

This is simplistic, I know.

Now on the other hand, what is there about America that promotes thinking and acting along the lines of making healthy lifestyle choices. This would occur only at the high end educational level because at the corporate/commercial/media level we are up to our eyeballs in saturated fat, high carb, processed sugars, white flour, extra beef overload. When I go to an ordinary supermarket, there are literally aisles and aisles of substances that are labeled as food and that is a generous presumption. The stuff is not fit for any being, at least the ones with a pulse.

I would offer that most people in America learn about life, get their lifestyle education through watching TV commercials and through watching the stars ape and promote corporate lifestyle choices such as big macs and coke.

Fundamentally we arrive once again at the common American rift. Health care is big corporate business and food is big corporate business. Corporate health care calls the shots with doctors, and corporate food calls the shots through advertising and marketing perfected science.

If you want other, you have to trudge out of the mainstream and that roadmap is something that many of us have spent a lifetime trying to figure. At this point its only getting passed down within families and the infrequent food cooperative.

McClathcy: Better habits can help trim bloated health care system

Indeed, some of the responsibility for health care costs sits squarely on the shoulders of consumers who make unhealthy choices – by supersizing meals, quenching thirst with sugar-laden sodas, filling lungs with tobacco and taking a less active role in maintaining their overall fitness.

"As important as health reform is, the real answer in reforming America's health care system is to empower individuals to make better choices about what we eat and how we live..."

Obesity costs the nation as much as $147 billion annually, according to a government study released in July.