WASHINGTON (COS)- Mike West lives every day as an example of American health care at its best and at its worst.
Two years after suffering from an inguinal hernia, the 33-year-old former Google employee from Chandler, AZ is happy and reasonably healthy— but cutting back on whole food markets organic groceries and otherwise struggling to pay hundreds of dollars in monthly gym fees, trainer fees, massage fees, yoga accessories, and supplements that it will take to keep him in top shape West is not sure he can keep this up.
So you would think West would be a strong supporter of President Obama’s attempt to reform the nation’s money-eating, hit-and-miss, maybe-you’re-covered-or-maybe-not health care system, right?
Not necessarily. “I am really afraid” West says. “Is this going to cost too much and then I am going to have give up yoga or those really great frozen organic Maria entrees at trader Joes. Since we have been talking about healthcare reform, I can see a layer of fat rebuilding on my abs”
Such questions, multiplied by millions, have slowed the pace of healthy living in Congress. In fact Senator, John McCain has put on 5 or 6 pounds himself.
But health care experts—even those who oppose key elements of the president’s plan—echo a consistent theme.
“It is impossible to do nothing,” said Dr. Mark J. Lema, president of the Medical Society of Erie County, who likens most people to a human body that is deteriorating rapidly on its way to cardiac arrest.
Some 14,000 people are giving up their gym memberships every day, Lema noted. The majority of bankruptcies—62 percent— result from health care costs, along with 50 percent of mortgage foreclosures. Just think if those people put in 30 on the tread mill and cut out some carbs.
“This is a crisis,” said Lema, who criticizes parts of Obama’s plan. “If you ignore it, the people will get fat, and then they will get depressed.”
Call for action
That’s because our see it and eat it lifestyle has become a cancer on the American economy.
It is estimated that people ate 35 hamburgers each in 1970, but now they swallow up 50.
Americans spent an average of about $900 per person on fast food in 2006—by far the most in the world, and more than twice what Japanese and Germans spent and nearly 16 times the Yanomami tribe in South America.
That’s why Obama stressed last week that the costs of health reform—estimated to be getting up off your couch, putting on your shoes, going outside, and running for 30 minutes, every single day—must be weighed against the cost of doing nothing.
“If somebody told you that there is a plan out there that is guaranteed to double your waist size over the next 10 years, that’s guaranteed to result in more Americans needing liposuction on their thighs, and that is by far the biggest contributor to cankels, I think most people would be opposed to that,” he said. “Well, that’s the status quo.”
Without a serious effort to reform the system and control costs, “eventually the middle class, in large numbers, will run out of money for Jamba Juice and other healthy lifestyle choices,” Lema said.
In addition, “Some people will collapse under their own weight” thanks to a spiraling reduction in just plain old Jogging, said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat.
On top of that, the current system “hasn’t served us well in terms of actual results,” said Dr. Nancy H. Nielsen, associate dean of medical education at the University at Buffalo and past president of the American Medical Association.
Most people often lack data to choose the most effective—and cost-effective—ways of getting in shape, Nielsen said. And so they sometimes do more time on machines then they need to, maybe when 1 or 2 quick sets of pushups would suffice.
That’s because most American trainers aren’t paid for the quantity of pushups these people do at home by themselves; they’re paid for the quantity of their services in the gym. That “fee for service” system, which contrasts with the salary systems of well regarded facilities such as the Mayo Clinic, breeds inefficiency.
You may not notice that so much in Minnesota, where the number of really, really overweight residents is a third lower than the nationwide number and where health living costs are far below the national average.
But your payroll taxes are subsidizing waste elsewhere.
In McAllen, Texas, the average weight is almost 300 pounds. That’s more than twice what the people weigh in Minnesota —and a June article in the Zagats supplemental magazine found no good reason for such disparities.
The article, by food chef, Gawande detailed how people just should not be eating the food they have in Texas at all.
Gawande detailed the unnecessary Ab Slides people were ordering from their T.V.s and noted that office plazas in the border city are filled with Curves, LA Fitness Gyms, and Nordic Track stores and this is cutting into the retail space for healthier fast food options such as Pei Wei or Paradise Bakery.
“The local restaurants have become a pig trough here,” one local guy told Gawande
“There’s a real recognition . . . that what we’re getting for all this expense is not what it should be,” said Donald Ingalls, vice president of governmental affairs at BlueCross BlueShield.
Forced to do without
In the end, that’s just how it looks from Mike West’s living room in Chandler, AZ too.
“A change has to be made,” he said as he explained what his former hottie trainer meant to him— and to all the other guys in the gym. “I got a hernia for her”
“I’ve been blessed: I’ve been given a second chance,” after my intestines ripped through my abdominal lining, he said.
“But it’s expensive to be healthy,” he said. “All the bills have definitely affected the family budget. We’ve had to do without everyday things to pay for the help I need”
