Simple Fix for America's Healthcare

If the first (couple) trillion dollars spent on healthcare doesn’t make people healthier, what makes anyone believe trillions more will? Money will not make people healthier, in fact it can make people less healthy as we have seen.How can we fix healthcare without touching the existing private healthcare sector?

It’s actually quite simple!

Healthcare is like education. If you don’t do your ‘homework’ you will never learn, and you will hold everyone back. Homework is health education, food choices, and exercise.

>> FOOD IS THE BEST MEDICINE <<

Exercise is second. The point is, what is the point of paying trillions to treat people, who are not treating themselves? If someone refuses to quit smoking, why should the state spend thousands on treatment of their lung cancer? It’s pointless. It won’t help, and won’t make them better. Why should the state pay for expensive diabetes treatments that can be cured by eating better i.e. FREE?

TAX TOXIC FOOD, and food ingredients that are health detriments; Transfats, carcinogens, sugar, ect, and put the money from these taxes into the public healthcare system fund. We tax cigarettes and alcohol to pay for education and treatments, why should food be different?DO NOT tax business, health benefits, or anything else. We all know that food/diet is what determines 90% of your health. If you eat tons of sugar, and junk food, you are way more likely to have high body PH and get sick; thus you should be paying more for healthcare, and you would in the form of taxes.

This would also help show the true cost of our diet habits. People that are healthy should not be forced to pay more for people who are not healthy, or at least are not trying to be health.

Why would we tax healthcare benefits to help people get benefits? It doesn't make sense, that will make people lose benefits! We have millions of people (many illegal immigrants) not paying into the healthcare system at all. The only way to get them to pay into it, as they should, is through a Health Tax (or tax on food that detriment health). Also, public healthcare treatments must include classes on being healthy, eating right, and exercise. People with similar ailments will meet and discuss what works and what doesn’t, and how to get better, as well as track progress (AA meets Jenny Craig). If people do not attend the diet + exercise classes then they are dropped from the (expensive) treatment program and will be only be provided pills. This will weed out those that don’t really want to get better from those that do. The money will be spent on those that do.

Bottom Line:

1) We cannot afford to help people who will not help themselves.

2) Tax toxic foods, and food additives. This will pay for reform, and will lessen use giving a double benefit effect.

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More often than not, the simplest answer is the right one!

Taxing things that are unhealthy makes perfect sense!

Sugar, transfats, carcinogens and additives are NOT a necessity for anyone. Therefore a tax on them DOES NOT HURT ANYONE. In fact it helps them make better choices. It will help them. Trust me the corn syrup lobby does not have your health in mind.

>> Taxing things that have no health value would also target everyone equally. No one has to eat junk food. <<

If people are living on junk food they are a major health risk, and this will cost them and the tax payers in the long run. Perhaps they should be persuaded to make better choices, to see the true cost.

America spends over $4,500,000,000,000.00 (trillions) a year on healthcare, like $100,000 PER PERSON and yet we are far from the healthiest people in the world? It's not lack of funding, and more funding will not fix it.

Why?

Diet. Toxic food.

Groups that are against a tax on toxic food are diabetically blind to the nature of the problem. They want the rich, or the insured, or the healthy to subsidize there lifestyle. THERE IS A HIGH COST TO EATING POORLY!

No one is saying you can't eat what you want. This is America!

But the true cost of these choices must be seen. It is the only way.

I really wonder if America has the guts (ironically is a nation of big ones) to truly reform Healthcare. As I see it, throwing more money at the problem will make things worse!!!

Ignoring the real problem, and thinking trillions more will solve anything is INSANE!!!

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From what I heard NYC successfully banned transfats? Right? No need to tax that... Nation wide would be great, but a tax on it (at the portion, per twinky value added) is the next best thing.

jforgizmo wrote:
Since manufacturers of foodlike products are very effective lobbyists, taxing each different kind of food appropriately for it's level of junkiness will be hard to design or implement

I don't see it as that hard. 10¢ per candybar, 5¢ per can of soda, 20¢ for McDiabeties explotion, ect. Value add it. At the manufacture level, build it in to the price.

Not wanting to do what's right because there will be a fight is not what makes/made America great. The food companies will fight, but this is about what's right, and what's best for people, not their bottom lines. If congress is not able to do what's right for the people who elected them, make the hard choices, then government has truly failed us on this issue.

jforgizmo wrote:
It is much more expensive to eat fruits and vegetables than to eat burgers.


Last I checked fruit and veggies ARE cheaper than burgers, thats a cop out. Remember the true cost of burgers is very high, not only on health but on the forests cut down to raise the cattle and the methane...

jforgizmo wrote:
When most people want jobs, it is also hard to have someone availalable to work for nothing, daily, to prepare meals from scratch from fresh ingredients. Processed foods made with whole grains and unrefined oils have shorter shelf life, are less profitable, and more expensive. Packaged sweetened food products (most of what is sold) can not include stevia (only sugar, corn syrup, and a few others), because Con Agra pulled a fast one with the FDA and got only their version of stevia approved as a sweetener, so they will have a monopoly on a patented version of a natural, calorie-free sweetener.

You can process food without transfats, carcinogens, artificial sweetner, and MSG. There are health alternatives that still allow for a long shelf life. And we don't need need to ban all those things, there is a place for them, I am just saying that the true cost of them should be shown. "The high cost of Low Price". America needs to spend more on prevention to prevent bankruptcy on intervention.

All sweeteners (real or artificial) have no health value and should be taxed. If its not diabetes, it's cancer, same damage, no benefits come from them. Tax them all the same.

In regards to the rest of what you said:

I think Universal Healthcare is ideal, but in America where 50% of healthcare dollars spent goes to 5% of the population, this gets tricky.

I think what we need is a Public and Private parallel system, like we have for schools and universities. We need to have universal care, but we need to keep the private side intact (innovation et al). If you can pay, and have millions you should be able to spend it on your health, this is America. But on the same token, if you have no money, or are just getting by, you should get the care or the treatment you need without being bankrupted by a system designed to make money, not treat people.

So, we need a public system designed to keep people healthy (tax junk food, health classes, food/exercise as part of treatment) as well as a private system that keeps the ideas and innovations flowing. If you can pay you can get crazy death delaying treatments and not have to take health classes.

The Fix of Healthcare requires a three prong fix.

1) Encourage health through incentives: Tax junk food, Tax rebates for staying healthy

2) Create a public universal system that covers emergencies and the basics. Rationing exists already! What do you think your health insurance company does to you? We need clinics and to get people out of the emergency room, who should not be there.

3) Turn Health Insurance to be more like car insurance. You buy it and file a claim for 'other' treatments should you need or want them, or put money into a health saving account to pay for treatments that are not part of the public system. Getting the basics and emergency treatments off the backs of private insurance will solve a great deal of the problem and will stop the frivolous testing and fraud.

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Bottom line:

America needs healthcare reform >> Create a universal public system

America needs to be healthier >> incentivize better diet, encourage health

We will be so much more productive and prosperous once we get this done.