McDaniel Chiropractic Center

You Get What You Pay For...Except When You Don't!

Over the years I have found that many times the familiar saying, "you get what you pay for," holds true. Just the other day I had a conversation with some of the guys I play baseball with concerning the differences between baseball gloves. One of my friends asked about the difference between a glove that costs $60.00 and one that costs $160.00. They answer...night and day! In my experience with baseball gloves quality does equate with cost. 

How about health care? Do we get what we are paying for? I would say the answer is a resounding no! In the U.S. we spend more (way more) on health care than any other nation. In 2012 we spent an average of $8,233.00 per every single person. The only nation that even comes close to this figure is Norway, which spends roughly $5,388 annually per person on medical expenditures, or roughly 65 percent of what the U.S. spends. Put another way, 17 cents of every single dollar spent in the U.S. is spent on health care while 16 cents of every U.S. dollar is spent on food, clothing and fuel...combined! 

Sure we spend more but we have the best health care system in the world, right? 

U.S. Health in International Perspective:

Shorter Lives, Poorer Health

"The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries.

In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings.

U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage."

What is the answer? I believe we need to think differently and ask better questions! 

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Here are a few video clips to get you thinking and maybe asking better questions: