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The Health Insurance Industry

The health insurance industry is one of the largest and fastest growing of all human activities -- it currently fits well within the philosophy that "man has a right to good health," and that "someone other than the person himself has a duty to provide that service!" cc

Traditionally Man started out, most usually, with a family that provided help and advice on "life" including, certainly, "a healthy life."  A youngster was first controlled strictly as to what he would eat and how to behave in order to maintain his bodily function and health.  Just as a parent had the general responsibility of putting a child's feet on the path to independent adulthood in every area of life, each young adult moved ahead in life gaining both knowledge about and control over health matters.  It would be easy, perhaps even instructive, to look back a few hundred years to the times where "family" first found that specialized help was useful in the form of a doctor for health, as a plumber for the sink and a grocery store in place of the farm.  However it has happened we are now at a point in our cultural evolution that the fractured family provides relatively little guidance to the child on health matters -- in its place is the school and the street!

As a sweeping generalization that is fundamentally true, man has become less and less responsible for managing his own health -- the replacements have not been enough to do the job, so society is sicker every year; in many cases the man lives longer but he dies earlier -- in that, simply, he loses function long before he loses breath.

One hundred years ago the leading causes of death were infection, accident and childbirth. Quick and cheap. Now the leading causes of death are heart trouble, cancer and stroke. Slow and expensive. Sixty years ago, when you were old, you were either healthy or dead. An illness or injury that is now expensively disabling was usually fatal. This was the case back to the beginnings of humanity. We now have a new ballgame with major implications that have not been well recognized. (Source)

It is probably well accepted that the causes of death have changed dramatically in the past 200 years, but what is still little appreciated is that the LENGTH of life has NOT been extended.  Here is data from census figures covering the year of 1850 -- 150 years ago.  Surely, you say, modern medicine has made it possible to live much longer lives, even if we die of different things than we died of in 1850?

The bottom figure [chart here] shows the average life expectancy for a female aged 60 in the year 1850 -- it shows 17.0 years while a similar female aged 60, in the year 1950 has only 15.7 years of life expectancy.

Thus, more people lived longer in 1950 than they did in 1850, but if a person got to the age of 60 the chances of living longer at that age were better in 1850 than they were in 1950.

This table covers the State of Massachusetts.  Most other areas weren't keeping such records in 1850, but Massachusetts would seem to be representative of the entire population.

The conclusion related to heart disease?  Well, doctors are fond of telling you that modern medical science has "extended life."  In fact, it has been sterilization of surgical instruments, and the washing of hands by the doctors attending a birth -- these have been the great medical strides forward. These are what has greatly increased the chances of living past the first year for millions of people.

But, despite all the "advances" in medicine and science in the past 100 years, if you survive the first year, and get to the age of 60, you would have been better off in 1850 than you are today.

Further, generally NONE of those older people in 1850 died of heart disease.  They died of several other causes, but not heart disease.  In today's times, the great bulk of older people will die of heart disease, an unknown disease just 200 years ago. (Source)

I could go on, with the data and logic that shows we are less healthy now, with health insurance, than we were 150 years ago, without health insurance.  But, it is also true that "going back" 150 years is not possible.

Accepting the truth of the matter, that health has not been improving over time, what about the cost of this non-improving service?

In 2000 and 2001, growth picked up again, increasing 7.4 percent and 8.7 percent, respectively, to $1.4 trillion in 2001. Health spending as a share of GDP increased sharply from 13.3 percent in 2000 to 14.4 percent in 2001, as strong growth in health spending outpaced economy-wide growth. For the 283 million people residing in the United States, the average expenditure for health care in 2001 was $5,035 per person.

The future:

National health expenditures are projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012, up from $1.4 trillion in 2001. From 2001 through 2012, health care spending is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 7.3 percent, roughly 2.2 percentage points faster than the GDP rate. As a percentage of GDP, national health spending is projected to reach 17.7 percent by 2012, up from 14.1 percent in 2001. After increasing 8.7 percent in 2001, NHE growth is projected to be 8.6 percent in 2002 and 7.3 percent in 2003. This deceleration would follow 5 consecutive years of accelerating spending growth. (source)

So, what do we do NOW, with the admitted mess of the health care system?

There is more!  It is not just the insurance for health care that is corrupted, but the system itself!

In yet another blow to consumer confidence in the honesty of medical information the very journals that have been publishing drug information widely used to "educate" doctors is now revealing that their own articles are too often "wrong!"

"Doctors and patients who rely on articles in prestigious medical journals for information about drugs have a problem: The articles don't always tell the full story."  (WSJ Article -- Source)

Perhaps it is a social good and needs fixing, no matter how it may be fixed.  Perhaps it is logical and necessary in a moral society to provide health care to all who need it?

I suggest you start with NOW and figure out how YOU, personally, can survive within this health care mess.  It is clear to me that the system is broken, and needs some political discipline that has been lacking in the Government for decades in order to fix it.  So, whether or not it is fixed, how do YOU work within the system as it is and as it is likely to be during YOUR prospective use of that system.

And, I suggest you find ways to be less and less dependent for "health" on the "medical system."  One solution to the coming bankruptcy of government-financed health care is to make individuals "responsible" for their own health.  After all, death is a natural part of life and health is a factor of millions of personal, individual decisions made from the youngest age of awareness to the last minute of life.  When a society becomes more and more moral, they will object, more and more, to paying their money to support the poor health decisions of those who have been immoral in their choices of diet, lifestyle and other factors affecting health.

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