Minding Your Healthcare Affairs

by Allen Cadora
(Atlanta, GA)

No one will mind your healthcare affairs as well as you will - if you know how. Our healthcare system is very complex. With the interjection of government regulators and their oversight, it promises to be even more complex in the future.

However, you can do much to improve your healthcare affairs with a few simple, common-sense steps. Steps that you alone can take. Seventy percent of our healthcare expenses are due to our own personal bad habits. Americans eat too much of the wrong foods. And, we smoke too much.

Personal health insurance underwriting standards initially focus on these two behaviors - smoking and obesity. Heavy tobacco users and those over the height / weight limits will usually be rated up or, in the extreme, declined. These conditions cost insurers money, so they are going to charge more for it or decline coverage when they can.

The longer people abuse their health with such bad habits, the worse their health will get. The good flip side is that you can start realizing the benefits of better health as soon as you stop abusing yourself.

You can not only improve your longevity, but you will look better, feel better and save money. Win, win, win all around.

It reminds me of the guy who kept hitting himself in the head with a hammer. When asked why, he replied, "cause it feels so good when I stop."

So, stop!