A Mindset Shift on Health

Let’s get a few things straight.

Health insurance is not designed for health.

The healthcare system is not designed for health.

Insurance is not an investment.

They are designed as middlemen to ration money and resources to the sick.

To maintain a profit margin, insurance keeps your doctors from having full autonomy to decide what tests, medications, or therapies you need with preferred lists, red tape, prior authorizations, and denials.

To survive as a business, hospitals and hospital-owned clinics rely on a high quantity of care (ie; a high volume of patients) while giving lip service to their quality of care with made-up accolades and awards. (Side note: Venture capital-funded health startups are maybe a notch better but still riddled with the usual corporate problems.)

After all, the privilege to practice medicine and the patient-doctor relationship wasn’t meant to be commoditized or corporatized at a large scale.

Healthcare employers and insurance companies are as far-sighted as next quarter’s profit & loss report, not on the potential millions saved from helping you preserve your healthspan for the next several decades.

These systems are best at saving lives in acute and critical illnesses, surgeries, procedures, and trauma care. And we’ll forever need them for this.

They’re subpar at best with subacute and chronic disease care.

And provide the bare minimum with preventative, proactive care.

How about excellent mental health care? Forget about it.

You can easily Google the health outcomes in America to see.

Or, check out this article.

To put it another way, if America has some of the shittiest health outcomes of the developed nations, how do you expect your health insurance and the healthcare system to keep you healthy?

It’s time to make a mindset shift.

Use the system when you need it, but also think outside of the system so you don’t have to need it.

Invest in your wellness.

Invest in your sleep, your nutrition, time for exercise, time in nature, your mental health, your relationships, and your own continuing education. Nobody says it’s always easy or perfect, but it will be cheaper than paying for a dozen medications and hospital bills later. Even with insurance.

You’ll also pay with lost time trying to heal. Not to mention, your family’s and time and energy to care for you.

To achieve anything worthwhile in life, including achieving or maintaining a state of wellness, it means getting comfortable with doing uncomfortable things. Sweating a little more, lifting a little heavier, limiting your Netflix at night, choosing veggies over fries more often.

It is your right to be healthy.

But don’t expect anyone to hand you health.

And when you need to learn how to best take care of you or need help beyond what the system can offer, there are legit professionals and resources just outside of the healthcare system. And that’s okay because the system is overwhelmed.

Prioritizing fresh whole foods, physical activity, and healthy behaviors are culturally and socially shaped.

Would you say that America, at baseline, is culturally and socially healthy?

Wellness starts with the right mindset and it starts with you.

Self-care is health care.

Invest in yourself. You are so worth it. ❤️