[Ayoob]

Suggestion for all and sundry: Change your lifestyle to be as health conscious as possible. Eat healthy food, get plenty of exercise and sleep, take vitamins, choose an active job, don't live in smog, participate in sports, get preventative care instead of reactive care.

Quit smoking, lose weight, blah blah blah.

Get your teeth fixed/cleaned regularly, and brush and floss daily, use mouthwash, use hydrogen peroxide, use baking soda, use everything. Keep your mouth healthy.

It's gonna be REALLY IMPORTANT in about five or ten years. We're not going to have the vast medical apparatus we have today. It's gonna break down due to a lack of reinvestment. No amount of government paper shuffling is going to make America prosperous again, so we're going to lose some of our health care system.

Buy health insurance, whatever you can afford, if you want access to quality care. The line for free services is going to get longer and longer, and the services provided are going to get smaller and the quality is going to drop.

If you value health care, it would be very wise to put yourself in the best possible condition for a good outcome. That would include:

1. Being in the best physical condition you can be in prior to your need
2. Having cash and insurance to pay for services rendered
3. Take the direction you receive from health care professionals to heart and make lifestyle changes.
4. Follow through with aftercare instructions. Use creams and ointments, eat healthy food, continue to exercise, etc.

[Ludi]

Carefully choose your parents and grandparents.

[Loki]

Excellent advice. I even do a few of those things, on occasion.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'S')uggestion for all and sundry: Change your lifestyle to be as health conscious as possible. Eat healthy food, get plenty of exercise and sleep, take vitamins, choose an active job, don't live in smog, participate in sports, get preventative care instead of reactive care.

[frankthetank]

Loki-

yes

I read about a lot of farm accidents in this area every year. Most of them end with a dead body. For the percentage of people involved, the accident rate must be very high. The same for someone that uses a chainsaw. Lots of people seemed to get killed when cutting trees.

Cars are horribly dangerous, but my guess is biking isn't much better. I slipped 3 feet from my front door and snapped my wrist a year ago. $30K+ later and everything is good

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'C')arefully choose your parents and grandparents.

[gt1370a]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'C')arefully choose your parents and grandparents.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'L')oki-

yes

I read about a lot of farm accidents in this area every year. Most of them end with a dead body. For the percentage of people involved, the accident rate must be very high. The same for someone that uses a chainsaw. Lots of people seemed to get killed when cutting trees.

Cars are horribly dangerous, but my guess is biking isn't much better. I slipped 3 feet from my front door and snapped my wrist a year ago. $30K+ later and everything is good

[Loki]

double tap

[hardtootell-2]

I have given this subject quite a bit of thought and I have this to offer

-will insurance companies pay in good faith in the future if they rarely do so now?
-would it be a worthwhile goal to have a health care professional as a tenant or a friend in the future?
-since something like 7/8th of a person's health care spending is in the last 3 months, it may be worth saving you some suffering and your estate some cash to expedite the inevitable where not prohibited by law-of course.

I really agree with the sentiments of taking your health seriously stated above. It is also common sense from a quality of life POV. I like to treat all injuries aggressively and it is important to be an informed and thoughtful consumer of medicine whenever possible.

just my 2 cents

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hardtootell-2', 'I') have given this subject quite a bit of thought and I have this to offer

-will insurance companies pay in good faith in the future if they rarely do so now?
-would it be a worthwhile goal to have a health care professional as a tenant or a friend in the future?
-since something like 7/8th of a person's health care spending is in the last 3 months, it may be worth saving you some suffering and your estate some cash to expedite the inevitable where not prohibited by law-of course.

I really agree with the sentiments of taking your health seriously stated above. It is also common sense from a quality of life POV. I like to treat all injuries aggressively and it is important to be an informed and thoughtful consumer of medicine whenever possible.

just my 2 cents

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'E')xcellent advice. I even do a few of those things, on occasion.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'S')uggestion for all and sundry: Change your lifestyle to be as health conscious as possible. Eat healthy food, get plenty of exercise and sleep, take vitamins, choose an active job, don't live in smog, participate in sports, get preventative care instead of reactive care.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '
')Not to make light of the health care situation, but they cut themselves grafting fruit trees? I grafted a bunch last year and that was the LEAST risky thing I did with a knife. It's as risky as whittling a point on a pencil. The other day I was sharpening a huge old knife with a mill file, and I reminded myself that if I was not careful i could sever a tendon.

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '
')Not to make light of the health care situation, but they cut themselves grafting fruit trees? I grafted a bunch last year and that was the LEAST risky thing I did with a knife. It's as risky as whittling a point on a pencil. The other day I was sharpening a huge old knife with a mill file, and I reminded myself that if I was not careful i could sever a tendon.

[hardtootell-2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hardtootell-2', 'I') have given this subject quite a bit of thought and I have this to offer

-will insurance companies pay in good faith in the future if they rarely do so now?
-would it be a worthwhile goal to have a health care professional as a tenant or a friend in the future?
-since something like 7/8th of a person's health care spending is in the last 3 months, it may be worth saving you some suffering and your estate some cash to expedite the inevitable where not prohibited by law-of course.

I really agree with the sentiments of taking your health seriously stated above. It is also common sense from a quality of life POV. I like to treat all injuries aggressively and it is important to be an informed and thoughtful consumer of medicine whenever possible.

just my 2 cents

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', '
')Did you consider other options? How about hospitalization policies, catastrophic illness policies, a policy with a health savings account attached, a high-deductible policy that would cover you for major cancer treatments?

I'm not saying you should pay $600 a month for COBRA coverage. What I'm saying is, if you decide not to financially prepare yourself for a medical expense then that is on you. Do whatever you want, but you should understand that this is your choice.

It sounds to me like you don't want to pay for health care coverage. Insurance companies are criminals, it's too expensive, etc. That's fine, it's no skin off my back if you don't. It's a free country, do what you want.

If you break your leg though, what are you planning on doing?

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', '
')Did you consider other options? How about hospitalization policies, catastrophic illness policies, a policy with a health savings account attached, a high-deductible policy that would cover you for major cancer treatments?

I'm not saying you should pay $600 a month for COBRA coverage. What I'm saying is, if you decide not to financially prepare yourself for a medical expense then that is on you. Do whatever you want, but you should understand that this is your choice.

It sounds to me like you don't want to pay for health care coverage. Insurance companies are criminals, it's too expensive, etc. That's fine, it's no skin off my back if you don't. It's a free country, do what you want.

If you break your leg though, what are you planning on doing?

[evilgenius]

Yes, the hyper-individualists tend to stare blankly when it is run under their noses that this is a representational democracy. The Constitution guarantees individual rights, but those alone are not enough for a person to enjoy participation. To participate you have to get involved. In a representational democracy that means joining a group and pushing for your agenda. Individuals tend to get lost in that push. Most of the griping and moaning coming from the Tea Party faithful and sundry is due to such a point of view, not to the actual structure of things.

Consumers have never been very good at organizing, remember the boycott movements of the 70's. Ordinarily that is part of free market economics. However, when the situation throws us all back en mass as a citizenry we do have a group that we can say we belong to. The government is us and we are the government. The government is not some foreign entity that is stealing from us. It is an entity that acts in response from the agitation of its own citizens. If a person's interests are not being met they should consider participating and not relying solely on their rights. That's what the healthcare debate is about.

[KrellEnergySource]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'C')onsumers

[Ayoob]

I find it just a little odd that nobody has chimed in to say that they have health insurance, or they don't have a problem paying for health insurance.

How do you think the doctors are going to get paid? It's either in your taxes or your health insurance bill. It's not free, it's not designed to be free.

It just seems weird.

I suppose there are people who don't care whether there are hospitals. If nobody pays, it all goes away, and then there's nowhere to go and no treatment to get at all.

[threadbear]

Cut out white food, white flour, white sugar, etc...I did this 6 months ago and dropped 25 lbs in 2 months, with zero effort--and it's staying off, with zero discomfort. All of us have bodies that are completely deranged from excess consumption of sugar. The sweet tooth was designed by nature to encourage us to eat fruit, probably to ensure vitamin C was consumed. So if you crave something sweet, eat fruit, but in limited amounts, unless you're a chimp (and I suspect there's few posters here who are) and can't resist massive quantities of bananas.