By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Here’s a wild and crazy idea to assure affordable healthcare: stay healthy! Wags have been posting various takes on this insane notion for some time now. Of course it’s usually along the lines of “best way to avoid massive hospital bills: don’t get sick!”

But this idea actually makes sense. The one thing the AMA, health insurance industries, for profit hospitals and Big Pharma never, never mention, because they don’t even want it on the table, is preventive medicine. Which is to say, commonsense, practical, no-nonsense steps the average person can and should take to stay healthy.

A healthy lifestyle might just be a good way to start. Here are some numbers to think about:

Obesity costs the American healthcare system more than $100 billion annually. Diabetes care costs another $150 billion. Heart disease costs double that at $300 billion per year. These are bills all of us are footing either as taxpayers or fellow workers, including those of us who actually don’t live from one KFC to the next, or consider opening the next box of Dunkin’ Donuts as our version of daily exercise.

Now, I’ve heard it said that obesity is nobody’s fault: blame genetics, blame God, blame KFC, blame the government, blame everybody but yourself for allowing yourselves and your kids to resemble the Michelin Tire Man. Truth is, according to the AMA, 99% of the time obesity results from deliberate lifestyle choices. Nobody forced anybody to spend 8 hours a day sitting on the sofa with the remote, munching Doritos and sending out for Papa John’s. And yet all of the rest of us are footing the medical bills such lifestyle choices bring about. Obese people need a lot more healthcare than slim, healthy ones, from more frequent knee and hip replacements, to heart and cholesterol problems, and so on.

And what about smoking? This has always been a taxpayer-subsidized lifestyle choice. While it’s true that health insurance companies offer “discounts” for non-smokers, this is peanuts compared to the huge added costs of frequent heart bypasses, high blood pressure, valve replacements, strokes, and other smoking related costs that all of us shoulder. And while there can be a good case made for the deliberate adding of highly addictive nicotine additives to cigarettes and other tobacco products, nobody forced anybody to light up to begin with. So here’s a great health and money saving idea: quit smoking, and you will save thousands—make that tens of thousands over your lifetime. And that’s just for the smokes. Your co-pays and added health insurance costs could easy quadruple those numbers.

And hello? A lot of us seem to think that exercise is something only the Sounders, Mariners and Seahawks need do. Or those “nut cases” zipping around in those funny bicycle pants. And if you think even driving a manual transmission car is too much trouble, where do you get off complaining when you suddenly need two seats on the bus (or plane) instead of one, and expect the carrier to foot the bill? And here’s a nifty little secret about exercise: it’s free. You don’t need to join a gym at $40 a month or whatever. You can do it anywhere, any time. Walking would be a good start. Or riding that bike, rusting away in the garage, once in a while. Swimming is one of the best exercises there is. The lake is free and community pools are very reasonable and way less than that gym membership. Try some calisthenics in your living room while watching Grey’s Anatomy. There are hundreds of sources and resources for simple exercise regimens that actually work.

Diet is something else we have full control over. And while Whole Foods may be more costly than your neighborhood Albertson’s, the fact that people who live in poverty are 60% more obese than middle and upper middle class people should tell you something: it isn’t about cost. Even organic veggies are a lot cheaper than a steady diet of potato chips and French fries.

You’ve heard the screamers and shouters belittling European healthcare, but all this noise is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth, which is that Europeans are way healthier than we are, and at a fraction of the cost. And no, they are not coming to America for healthcare, which would be stupid, since they have way better care than we do already. If you live in Kansas City, you don’t drive to Philadelphia to eat at McDonald’s. A recent study in Germany found that people who made the recommended lifestyle changes, gave up smoking, exercised regularly, maintained a healthy weight, and followed a healthy diet, got the following results:

A 36% reduction in all forms of cancer; A 93% reduction in diabetes; And 81% less heart disease.

Those are impressive numbers, which most of us seem to prefer to ignore or ridicule rather than emulate. But hey, if you are happy spending what is now a national average of $8000 per year out of pocket for health-related expenses, which is expected to double by 2015, more power to you. And please pass the pepperoni.

Sources: Live Science, Aug. 18, 2009 and Mercola.com

Archives of Internal Medicine August 10/24 2009; 169(15):1355-1362 [Free Full-Text Article]

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.