Must We All Become Joggers?

09/17/2006

Paul Munnis

The Mayo Clinic has a chart and a healthcare article that shows 100 reasons for exercise. Improved health is one of the many payoffs. Meanwhile health insurance coverage is tumbling and fading fast. As it does, people like the Mayo Clinic will have trouble getting paid for services. We are 15 Million uninsured now and the number is rising daily. Since the insured must cover the bills of the uninsured through higher fees then the cost of insurance is rising to match it.

While healthier lifestyles might contribute somewhat to the reduction of cost in health care it is far from a proven fact of life that it will cure the need for better American health insurance. Consider for example Mohammed Ali, the great heavyweight fighter. He was all about fitness his whole life. Today he is ravaged by Parkinson Disease. He did not court this problem as a result of slack living. He is also uninsurable because of his pre-existing condition.

Then there are fat kids, potato-chip munchers, and TV sedate lifestylers. Sure such extremes are contributing to bad health and we need to work to contain and reverse them as trends. But that is not the whole story.

Many people inherit genetic traits that cause unwanted and unasked for problems that they do not invoke as a result of their lifestyle choices. Overweight and obesity are thought to be connected to genetic traits and not entirely to overindulgence and lack of exercise although those giving us warnings to improve our lifestyles have a valid case for health benefits for couch potatoes who really are at risk by making poor lifestyle choices.

Politicians who promise fitness as the solution to American healthcare problems, especially as the solution to the lack of health insurance, are flat wrong and they should be called on it. Cardio-vascular health is often a function of genetics as much as it is fitness and activity level. Yes, you can have a heart attack on your treadmill and athletes really can develop oversized heart muscles. Excluding people with genetic inheritance from health insurance coverage is the antithesis of the meaning of insurance meant to cover risk. Yet states are requiring genetic testing of newborns and the GOP wants to put healthcare records in the public domain.

As insurance pools shrink because more and more people are squeezed out of their coverage when insurers learn of risk then the costs of healthcare rise not drop—this is because there are fewer and fewer people to cover the risk --thus insurance profits rise and so do premiums and caps and co-pays for the person covered not to mention the rise in healthcare fees billed to the insurance company.

As layoffs continue and job losses accumulate expect the health care crisis to become much worse in America as fewer people have health coverage. The only political solution that I can see is going to be to offer Universal Health coverage nationwide and it is a shame that so many must suffer a lack of healthcare as we try to shake off the GOP influence and obtain a national solution for America. Do not think Universal Health coverage is free. It won’t be, somebody has to pay for the insurance—ultimately it will be you and me. But it can be made more affordable by spreading the risk and eliminating paperwork and fraud and that’s what Democrats are seeking to do. Don’t think that it will cover things like elective cosmetic surgery because it likely won’t.

In the meantime these quick-fix political speech-makers are offering us bogus solutions to major national health problems. The latest we heard it from was the Green Candidate, Hutchinson, in his Governor Candidate Debate. Such people will make poor government leaders because they refuse to study the subject and to provide a senior-level of fixes and choices to Americans.

These matters raise a lot of questions. Why would we send such people to St. Paul or Washington to represent us when they don’t do their homework? How can GOP candidates continue to stonewall the issue of health care insurance for American citizens? How can the Bush Administration refuse to look for genetic solutions to health problems by banning research using frozen embryos ready for the trash heap? There is much to ponder in just this subject alone before we vote.