I exercise every Saturday morning listening to the Fox News business block to catch up on all the stuff I miss in news that will effect the health of our nation’s economy.
I know so little, that I think they are “gods of finance”. But when they talked about medical costs recently, they knew so little and had their facts so confused, that I thought they must be shills for that true, but unrelated to the real problem, 16 page piece on medical costs in Time Magazine.
How could the Forbes and Fox gangs have it as wrong as Time did, when their own newspaper (Murdock run, like Fox) pointed out the folly of the Time piece? The Forbes gang just didn’t give it to you straight on this topic…and it makes me wonder …should I stop watching them on Saturday mornings? Maybe just watch the recorded Oz shows, instead?
Let's get it straight.
While there are many things that make American Medicine more costly, most are minor compared to the one big one. We are twice as expensive as Canada and developed Europe for Medical Care as a percent of GDP. And we are four times as expensive as India, China, Japan, and Mexico. Why? Because we have twice the chronic disease of Canada and developed Europe, and four times that of India, China, Japan, and Mexico.
And these much higher costs are because we smoke more, eat more of the foods that promote diseases and obesity, get significantly less physical activity, and manage stress less.
Case in point—if you have your hip replaced at the Cleveland Clinic, you are out of there in a typical 2.8 days, as opposed to over 10 in Japan. We are more efficient—but we do many more than 4 times the hip replacements on a population basis than Japan.
Yes, the rest of the world is learning our disease promoting habits, but we are so far out in front that it is making us non-competitive for jobs, and reduces our standard of living. Not to mention that it is the major cause of Federal budget busting.
The Wall Street Journal said this about the Time piece, and our medical cost problem, in a March 3rd op-ed by HW Jenkins, Jr: “he offers perversities that are already well known, without offering a single useful insight on how it got that way, and even less on how to fix it.”
That’s because the Time piece doesn’t deal at all with the problem of our increasing influx of chronic disease.
Chronic disease is caused by our lifestyle choices.
So for now, I’m worried about the Forbes gang guarding the Fox house. “They know nothing about Medical Costs, nothing…and they will ruin this country if we let 'em.”
I want to help 'em...and you should write 'em too - you already know much more about the reason our medical costs make us non-competitive and raise our debt and deficit so much.
Yes, if you’ve listened to the YOU The Owner’s Manual Radio Show, YOU know the key for you and for your company: walk, eat foods without added sugars or syrups, saturated or trans fats, and with only 100% whole grains, in appropriate portions, and learn to manage stress, and avoid all exposure to tobacco.
Then you, like the Cleveland Clinic employees have, will be healthier and will bend the cost curve down to make America more competitive for jobs…only you can do it…tell the Forbes gang they have a mighty mouthpiece to shoot straight, give it to us straight, and help the country be more competitive.
Questions—just send 'em to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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