Boomers and Our Health System

Medicare has just boosted its online enrollment system to accommodate 10,000 enrolling baby boomers per day. Yes, that is per day. It has been said that our current economic situation could bust Medicare by the year 2013 if things don't turn around.

Employers are being told they need to carry more of the load for health benefits. Yet, ask around and you will easily find people recently laid off because their employer had to make budget cuts.

To fix this problem, maybe we need to heed the words of John F. Kennedy. “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. And lest we forget Obama’s “Change” pledge. Maybe it is time for change and maybe we need to look to ourselves to help fix our country’s crisis, instead of relying on the government.

If we all took one positive step to living a healthier life, we can help turn the tide of the healthcare crisis. Safeway food stores found that 70% of health care costs were linked to unhealthy habits. Look at the movement to reduce water bottles going into landfills. If everyone in New York City gave up bottled water for a week, that would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled. Or how switching one light bulb in each American home to an Energy Star bulb would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year. Earth Hour is a global climate change group that is working to turn lights out globally for just one hour at 8:30pm on March 28th. Cheerios claims that eating their cereal for breakfast every morning as part of a low fat diet, can lower cholesterol.

We talk about Social Security failing, but what if Medicare fails? That would also be an inconvenient truth. A new movie needs to be made to raise awareness so we start making individual changes to turn the tide. The real question is who should make the movie: Al Gore, Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock?

Why not go for a walk and think about it.

Sources: earth911.com, energystar.gov, cheerios.com, earthhour.org, seniorjournal.com, readersdigest.com