3 Secrets Your "Health" Insurance Company is Keeping from You

In today's society, there is so much opinion, debate, and fear over the current health care reform which is really just insurance reform. The government is trying every single angle to "help" the uninsured Americans to gain access to "health" insurance coverage. The problem with this reform is that they are trying to get more Americans on an already sinking ship. It has been estimated that over 16% of the United State's GDP is spent on "health" care costs and yet according to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations, America ranked 42nd in life expectancy (below Chile and Cuba) in 2006. Simply put, the United States is spending more money on "health" care and yet our outcomes are getting steadily worse.

Why is that? It may have something to do with the following three secrets that "Health" Insurance companies are keeping from you:

1. Not all healthy habits are covered

If you haven't noticed by now, I have been placing the word "health" in quotations. Why? That is because "health" insurance has been referred to as such, but I truly feel it is one of the greatest misnomers of our time. It should really be called "sick" or "emergency" insurance because that is what it covers. If you break a bone, have clogged arteries, or even have a tumor that is taking over vitals organs, the medical profession is there to save your life. However, if we look at the top causes of death in our society, 9 out of 10 are PREVENTABLE through a healthy lifestyle.

What does that healthy lifestyle look like? For me and my family it involves 30 minutes of exercise every day, plenty of organic fruits and vegetables, 7-8 hours of sleep, a positive attitude, and a properly functioning nerve system (see my Nervous Doctor blog post). Now, you tell me the last "health" insurance company that reimbursed for your gym membership, your fruit and vegetable grocery bill, or your nutritional supplements. I still have yet to find one. For now, I will continue to use to our "health" insurance for what it truly should be used for, emergencies. And I will focus my energy on those habits that truly produce health.

2. Benefits are not necessarily beneficial

Let's look at one example such as taking a medication for a chronic disease such as hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol in the blood), which is normally covered with most "health" insurance plans. Will the medication lower your blood cholesterol levels? The answer is yes. But is that necessarily beneficial? A study quoted by Lipitor in advertisements showed that for every 100 people taking the medication, there was only one less heart attack per 100 people compared to 100 people taking the placebo. When you look at all the side effects of statin drugs (cholesterol lowering drugs), I start to wonder if the side effects are worth the benefits of lowering your cholesterol. 

I recently had a patient in my office who had a total cholesterol level of 150 for most of his life (below 200 is normal according to the current guidelines, even though I believe a level between 200-240 can be perfectly normal). This patient, although he had a low cholesterol level, had recently undergone coronary bypass surgery due to nearly complete blockage. In this man's case, did it matter that he had low cholesterol? Is it important to lower every one's cholesterol level artificially with medication that can cause a number of side effects, including muscle degeneration leading to kidney failure (rhabdomyolysis)? Did you know you can lower your cholesterol by over 30% just by eating a third of a cup of cooked beets every day? I don't see my "health" insurance company paying for my organic beets. Just some questions to ponder.

3. Early detection is NOT prevention

Recently my wife and I have been shopping around for a different health care provider for reasons which are a totally different story. Many of the quotes have been touting all the "preventative" screening tests that are available on an annual basis. Let's think about this logically, and this goes for any screening test; if you screen for any condition (i.e. high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.) and the screening comes back positive for that condition, what have you "prevented"? The answer is NOTHING. You have merely detected the condition. If you are lucky, you have caught it early enough that it can be reversed. So you are thinking, well Dr. Dan, isn't that the point of screening for these conditions, to catch them early? That depends on your plan of attack with this new information (see #2 above).

One of the more memorable pieces of information from my Pathology I class was the fact that my professor explained that we all have cancer. We all have 750,000 to 1,000,000 cancerous cells in our body every day. So what is the difference between a healthy individual and the individual diagnosed with stage 3 or 4 cancer? The fact that the healthy person has an immune system that fights off those cancerous cells on a daily basis long before any technology could ever detect their presence. The individual with end stage cancer has a greatly diminished ability to fight off those cancer cells. Have you ever wondered what chemotherapy and radiation do for cancer patients? They are procedures of odds, where we kill off all cells, healthy and cancerous alike, and hope that the healthy ones hold on long enough to win out. 

So does it pay to have all these fancy high tech screening procedures? Or should we be trying maximizing our own healing potential (see #1) that is with us from conception until death? I prefer maximizing my innate healing ability. This ability is greatly enhanced with the recognition that we are all created to be healthy, with or without our "health" insurance.

As always, I welcome your questions and comments.

Abundant Blessings,

Dr. Dan