I heard a report on NPR the other day in which a study revealed that the lifetime healthcare costs for people with unhealthy lifestyles were actually lower than those who take good care of themselves.
The finding was that smokers and obese people died earlier in life while healthier people incurred higher long-term care costs. So, maybe it sucks to die of emphysema at age 58, but it costs less than tooling around in a nursing home for 10-20 years. -----Original Message----- From: Cameron Childress [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 11:16 AM To: CF-Community Subject: Re: ironic question about healthcare Mary Jo Sminkey wrote: > And how to do that? I agree it would be great, but the first step > would be to require such care as being covered *before* a deductible > on insurance plans. And that of course will push premiums higher just > like everything else. And how to encourage doctors to push wellness > care as well? Some do, but others get more out of putting people on > these expensive meds than they do from trying to get patients to > change their lifestyle. At a certain point free will enters the equation. As you say, there are some people who would take advantage of wellness programs. This is great, and there are many many ways "wellness" can be encouraged in and outside the healthcare system. Personally though, I think there are a HUGE number of people who would not, unless it were literally forced on them - which I am definitely not in support of. If someone really wants to smoke and doesn't want to stop, they should be allowed to, but I don't want to pay their medical bills. If someone really likes cheetos and sitting on the sofa watching Dr Phill all day, what do we do with them? -Cameron ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:254152 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
