Is a New Retirement Account in Our Future?

health care costs

Corruption in the medical establishment, money spent on medical research, and developement of new drugs and "extraordinary means" of prolonging life has robbed us of the expectation of a comforable and relatively safe existence for the average citizen.

A statistic that I learned in nursing school in the early 90's illustrates this issue.

"Approximately 80% of the total money spent on a person's health care during a lifetime is spent in the last 2 weeks of his life."

I wish there was something that could be done to tame this greedy and inefficient industry.

Every day we are bombarded with adds from Pharmaceutical companies for drugs with dangerous side effects to treat symptoms of diseases that are for the most part the effects of poor lifesytle and or diet choices. At other times these "syndromes" whose names are actually created by a think tank trained in Madison Ave PR techniques are in fact symptoms no doubt often caused by poor nutrition or the use of prescription medication.

We need to reward people for preventative measurs taken and educate those who are making poor choices not give them expensive drugs and treatments that rob the rest of us of the chance to get basic medical care.

We need to reward families for keeping their handicapped or elderly family members at home. Nursing homes make over 5K per month for even the least infirmed of their patients. They often bilk the Medicare system for rehabilatative measures without any hope of patient improvememt.

Who knows what they get now. These little entrepeneurs are getting rich.

The paperwork continues to grow causing much of the operating expense involved with these services.

Their must be a better way.

Ron Robertson of IN @ Mar 11, 2009 12:25:27 PM