Bergen Family Chiropractic

45 North Lake Ave, Bergen, NY 14416 - (585) 494-2870

Bergen Family Chiropractic

U.S. Health Care System Doesn’t Give Us What We Pay For – Look at this Chart

The following five paragraphs and chart were reported in the Huffington Post by Mark Gongloff on November 26, 2013.  I didn’t copy the entire article yet enough to get the sad gist of the situation.  – Dr. Amy

“Hello, did you know the American health-care system [Dr. Amy’s note:  we can’t even call it health care, it is really “disease care”]  is terrible? It is.

If you’re unconvinced, here is a chart that demonstrates its terribleness. It shows, using OECD data, how much money different countries spend on health care per person, charted against life expectancy in each of those countries. As you can see, there is a pretty close relationship between health-care spending and life expectancy. Except for one very, very terrible country. Can you spot it?

terrible health care

Yes, among this group of big countries, the U.S. spends far and away more on health care than any other. And yet it has among the lowest life expectancies of any developed country. People live longer in pretty much every country in Europe, including Greece, where the economy has been wracked by austerity for years.

“What bothers me most is not that we’re all the way on the right, or even that we are lower than we should be,” Aaron Carroll, professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine wrote on his blog of the chart. “It’s that we are all alone. We are spending so, so, so much more than everyone else.”

This confirms what we pretty much already knew about the terribleness of U.S. health care. The U.S. ranks 46th among 48 developed economies in health-care efficiency, according to a Bloomberg ranking, below China, Iran, Colombia and, you know, pretty much everybody else.”

Dr. Amy again here:  what is one to do to have better health for yourself and your family within a broken system?  My opinion is to utilize the “disease care” medical system as little as possible (5% of the time or less) and to utilize true “health care” activities 95% of the time.

True Health Care Activities (certainly an incomplete list yet you get it)

Chiropractic to clear your nervous system for optimal healing from the inside out

Exercise

Eating real food in proper amounts to nurture your body and give it the raw materials to make healthy cells

Laughter, Love, Connections with Others

Sleep, sleep, and more sleep, you sleep-deprived Americans!

Acupuncture, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Essential Oils, Herbs – all those things that work well to support health without poisoning you as many “modern” drugs do

Outdoor time everyday and exposure to natural light and sunlight

Supplements – especially of omega 3s (fish oil), vitamin D3, probiotics and fermented foods

We must take our own health seriously and be thoughtful about what “treatments” we decide to undergo.  The prize is better health, greater energy, and certainly less cost.