Big Picture #3 : How to fix Health Care

The U.S. Health Care system has been a very hot topic for the past several years.  You've endured enough, so I'm just going to cut to the chase and give you the answer!

People need to be healthier.  This is easily the single most effective way to push the cost of health care way down.  Whatever the second best way is, it's not even close.  Healthy people don't need to spend much on healthcare. 

This simple truth is often overlooked.  Here's why.  Usually, when people in 1st World countries try to solve a big problem like this, they look at it with this mindset:

"I want everything to be better, but I don't want to give anything up."

Yeah, so... that's impossible.  So forget it.  You have to make sacrifices to attain greatness.  Here are some things that could be outlawed.  The absence of these risks would drive down the cost of health care.  This could be step 1.

Cigarettes

Hard Liquor

Motorcycles

ATVs

Trampolines

Personal fireworks

Pogo Sticks

You get the idea.

Now, really, all of this pales in comparison to the problem that obesity presents.  Being overweight brings a lot of health issues with it.  If laws were passed that essentially guaranteed a healthier diet for everyone, health care would suddenly become more affordable for everyone as the average weight of a U.S. citizen plummeted, and all those people who have been trying to lose excess weight for a long time would enter a new world where success is much easier to reach, because now, success is built into a blueprint. 

Let's say someone sells a cookie that contains 100 grams of sugar and 1000 calories.  This thing is really bad for me.  It has virtually no nutritional value and it actively hurts me.  Now let's say that cookie is outlawed.  I can't eat it anymore.  I can't gain the weight this cookie would have provided.  I can't get the cavities.  I can't get the diabetes.

Regulating the food that people can buy would be the biggest part of the plan.  You could try to make exercise more attractive for people, but in the end, you can't make people exercise.  However, everyone has to eat.  The question is, what should they be able to eat?   
   
If you're not willing to sacrifice anything at all, but you still want great health care for every single person in the U.S., you're dreaming.  You're attempting to defy the laws of physics.  You're trying to get jacked without working out. 

This is why we have never fixed health care.  Because people are trying to do the impossible; they are trying to be in 2 places at once.  You can not gain everything while giving up nothing. 

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Also, side note; The recent Health Care bills that have been offered by the GOP are a perfect example of the selfish ulterior motives of humanity.  Those bills were garbage, and fortunately, they have been revealed as such.  Those politicians were not approaching the problem with honesty.  They were not seeking the truth.  They were simply doing what they usually do; chasing their own selfish interests.

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Another big part of this new reality would be passing laws that would force insurance companies to set rates that reflect this new, healthier reality.  Don't even get me started on insurance companies.  If it was raining on a Tuesday and you were wearing a blue shirt as you drove under a bridge, they don't cover whatever happens next.  A lot of insurance companies would like to sell you a sealed box that can only be opened when something goes wrong.  And then when something does actually go wrong and you can actually open that box, you find out that it's empty.   

Also, there are the rare, headline grabbing medical cases.  Like when a kid has some rare disease and the treatment is like 8 zillion dollars.  With the money that would be saved by implementing the things I previously mentioned, it would be easier to help people with these rare disaster scenarios. 

The answer is there.  Are people willing to sacrifice to reach the goal?