Why doesn't our country promote more health education to reduce health care costs?

Question

Would you be willing to get healthier if it meant a rebate on your health insurance? With AFLAC I get $60.00 a year for going in and getting a free physical (paid for by my primary insurer) Any ideas about improving health and cutting health care costs?

Answer 1

It's all about preventive medicine. Unfortunately, people don't bother to worry about their health as long as they have it. And providers don't want to pay for things until there's a problem. We are all very short-sighted.

Answer 2

Stop using taxes to push your moralizing nutritional agenda. Let people eat what they want and pay for the consequences. P.S. A heart-healthy diet is not one that is high in carbohydrates. Cereal and milk have lots of sugar and lots of other carbohydrates that spike blood sugar and leave a person feeling hungry a few hours later. There are lots of HEALTHIER ways to get fiber without all the sugar and carbohydrates that metabolize quickly and turn into fat (which contributes to high triglycerides, by the way). Don't you see? We all have our ideas about what "healthy" is. Maybe I should tax you for being a carb hog since I am on a low-carbohydrate diet and have had a LOT more success than you.

Answer 3

Most health insurance companies already have the one a year no deductible check-up. for women is the mammogram and pep, for man is prostate. I have BC BS and that is the way it is. The idea of getting money back for doing what one should be responsible of doing, it's absurd. What we need is the Government out of our private lives. I knew what my responsibilities were long before I became 57. I find that the more we invite others especially the Government to tell us how to conduct ourselves, the more dependent we become and less self-sufficient

Answer 4

If people understood the politics of food and started demanding that their food not have certain things in it (high fructose corn syrup is a great example) we could all be a lot healthier. Yes, I agree that education is important but who is to decide what information is politically correct? Nearly every major medical society says that eating a diet based in corn and soy is killing us all. We could reduce diabetes, heart disease and cancer if we cut the consumption of these products in half. Do we tell people that? No, we subsidize the farmers who make the products so that they are cheaper and people buy more of them.

Answer 5

They aren't willing to pay for it upfront. They would rather pay it at the other end at many times the costs. Keeps them in jobs!

Physicals are essentially worthless, so says the AMA!

Yea, cut some of the profits of hospitals, their managers, HMO presidents who make 28 million a year and more, having 3 open heart surgery centers in a 50 mile radius, and quit letting the drug companies rip us off. I bought a medication that cost me 150.00 and them $9.00!

A Tylenol in a hospital costs $10.00! Ridiculous!

Answer 6

We have lots of education on health issues. How are you going to get people to listen and to heed, especially when the rules and advice are constantly changing?
Annual check-ups do not prevent illness. Considering the time and costs involved, some believe check-ups are not needed.

Answer 7

I don't think we could possible be more obsessed with our collective health then we already are. Rare is the hour one can spend without receiving some sort of heath realated information from every possible source.

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Answer 8

I agree but, that info is readily available to anyone who seeks it. It is all over the TV, the internet & magazines.

Health care costs can be cut SIGNIFICANTLY by going electronic and streamlining and perfecting claim filing processes.

Answer 9

With overpopulation, why on earth do you want people to get healthier. We should be promoting fat greasey burgers, cigarettes a foot long to cull the human herd.

Answer 10

The U.S. and HMO's do spend money on health care education.