Originally published October 1 2015
Look how much the US spends on "sick care"
by Jennifer Lea Reynolds
(NaturalNews) A data team at The Economist recently released a chart entitled "How countries spend their money". When it comes to health spending in the United States, it's very obvious that something is seriously out of whack. The chart shows that in the U.S., 20.9 percent of total household spending goes towards health costs, which is the highest health spending of all the other countries in the chart, including Canada, Japan, India, Australia and Mexico.
Many other places around the globe seem to be focused on spending their money in other ways. For example, the chart shows that 25.3 percent of Japan's total household spending goes towards fuel, housing and utilities. That's right... in just health costs alone, we're spending close to what Japanese households spend on fuel, housing and utilities. While 19 percent of household spending in Mexico is dedicated to transport, the U.S. spends that amount and then some just to keep our health on track.
Or so we think.
Why are so many of us still sick despite spending so much on sick care?
You'd think that with so many of us dishing out our dollars to insurance companies, hospitals and Big Pharma, the U.S. would be a much healthier nation. Instead, more than 29 million people in the United States have diabetes, more than one-third of its adults are obese, and just this year alone, about 234,000 new cases of breast cancer are expected surface in the U.S.
How is it that with so much spending focused on health, our health is actually waning? Shouldn't just the opposite be true? It's a fairly easy answer. In a nutshell, Big Pharma profits from sick people. You keep spending and tossing your money at the hope of becoming better. You either get a little bit better (but not without a slew of dangerous side effects, of course) or become much worse despite being on "effective" prescribed drugs. The vicious cycle goes on and on. Sadly, in many cases, health is made even worse thanks to the existence of junk foods, GMOs, cigarettes and a society addicted to sugar and excessive alcohol use. So we sit, tubs of ice cream in one hand and "make me better" pills in another, hoping that perhaps one day we'll have something to show for the money we're putting towards sick care.
"America does not have a shortage of doctors, it has an excess of disease"
Natural News editor Mike Adams hit the nail on the head in his post titled "The Sick Care Economy." It includes a comic that provides an eye-opening look at what's really driving the economy. The comic depicts a mayor proudly declaring that "Business is booming." Behind his podium stands buildings such as a cancer center, funeral home and fast food chain. It begs the question while simultaneously answering it: Are we REALLY experiencing a boost in the economy? It depends on who that question is directed towards. For Big Pharma, the answer is absolutely.
In that same post, Adams also included another article he wrote, "America does not have a shortage of doctors, it has an excess of disease." Once again, this comment is spot-on. We're not getting better, we're getting worse. Of this problem, Adams writes that it's "...an excess that the sick-care system seems determined to continue."
The sick part of sick care
For all the naysayers who think this is dramatic and all about instilling fear in people, consider the recent finding published in BMJ. It blows the lid off a study published in 2001 that stated Paroxetine (sold in the U.S. as Paxil) -- the antidepressant geared towards adolescents -- was "...generally well tolerated and effective for major depression in adolescents."
That study was reanalyzed and found to be false. "The efficacy of Paroxetine and imipramine was not statistically or clinically significantly different from placebo for any prespecified primary or secondary efficacy outcome," the new findings in BMJ state. "There were clinically significant increases in harms, including suicidal ideation and behaviour and other serious adverse events in the Paroxetine group and cardiovascular problems in the imipramine group."
After all these years of adolescents popping Paxil and medical experts praising it, the initially reported findings did not accurately convey the benefits and risks.
Sadly, this is just one example that makes you wonder about all the other pills, creams, liquids and tablets on the market designed to care for your sickness and on which you spend -- and will likely continue to spend - -significant amounts of money to no avail.
Sources for this article include:
ZeroHedge.com
Economist.com
CDC.gov
CDC.gov
Cancer.gov
NaturalNews.com
BMJ.com
TheGuardian.com
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