If and when we get healthcare reform, insurance companies should be granted an exemption from having to provide pills to those who refuse to help themselves.
Here's a case in point. There is a woman living a few blocks from me who is in her early 50's and weighs more than 400 pounds. The small amount of money she makes at her job puts her well below the poverty level, so she qualifies for government assistance with her healthcare. She refuses to follow her doctor's orders about changing her eating habits and getting more exercise.
Instead, she eats and snacks throughout each day on whatever she wants (including food that's high in saturated fats and sodium). In addition, she sits in front the TV most of the time, including the hours when she is supposed to be working. She even severely limits her bathroom breaks due to her dread of getting off her butt.
Her obesity has, of course, has been the source of numerous health problems for her, including diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, and high cholesterol. As a result, she takes nearly a dozen pills a day for those ailments. She gladly accepts and takes those pills that are mostly paid for by the government, but refuses to do anything else to help herself.
This may sound harsh to some, but I believe people should not expect the government or an insurance company to pay for their pills if they are unwilling to follow their doctors' orders and help themselves in any other way. In fact, when these people want pills, they should be required to pay for them out of their pockets. That's one provision that should definitely be included in any healthcare reform measure if we are sincere about eliminating waste and abuse from the system.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports.
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