Being Stealth in Health
Given a choice between material benefits and robust health, every wise human being with a bit of introspection, would wish living a prolonged life of excellent health and high flying spirits. However, gone are the days of the adage that read thus: “Health is Wealth”. Sizzling past the call of nature on a fast track of contemporary life style, we are surging ahead to meet the ostensible deadlines of economic and social requirements. Everyone of us now seek and depend upon the elixir of life from competitive quotes of health care and health insurance programs while swapping that age old adage on a trendy kinky note, “Wealth is Health”.
Several health insurance schemes and types like a family or individual plan, a self employed plan, a group plan, a child-only policy, seniors and high risk applicants, short-term policy, student insurance, health savings accounts, dental insurance and even discount cards are readily available. However, health care costs are escalating four times faster than wages and it’s no surprise that affordable health care has progressively emerged as an important prerogative. In America, health care costs continue to grow at a rate faster than the rest of the economy thus escalating their financial burden. From 2003 when almost one-fifth of American families were spending more than 10 percent of their disposable income on health care, the cumulative cost of premiums has increased to 91 percent by 2007, while more than one-quarter of adults reported not obtaining treatment or prescription drugs because of cost. America’s health system is in crisis, costing too much and leaving out around 45 million Americans who lack health insurance. With premiums growing five times faster than wages, some Americans have access to the most sophisticated medical care in the world, while millions are struggling to pay and are left to overcrowded emergency rooms, under-funded clinics, post-dated appointments or no health care at all. The greatest challenge of our time is to subsidize insurance and help facilitate the health care system to everyone at an affordable cost, based on income levels. Health insurance is particularly acute for individuals requiring adequate treatment of chronic illnesses and other conditions that require lengthy and more expensive medical care and increased use of health insurance. Florida, among the 50 States ranked 41 in health terms, based on a study conducted by the United Health Foundation in 2007. A low graduation rate, high violent crime rate and a high rate of infectious disease can be attributed to such a low ranking. The cost of health care in Florida is also ranked “high” in terms of health care cost while its quality being quite “low”.
With IT applications set to establish itself in the US, health providers would provide a quality focused health care system promising to improve lives, boost health care productivity and lower the costs. Improving health care quality, mapping clinical and payment data to health care outcomes and healthy system efficiency could well become revolutionary for the world health care.
