Tuesday, May 17, 2005

FREE TO BE SICK. Dr. Raphael Levey, founder of the Global Medical Forum, says "A relatively small percentage of the population consumes the vast majority of the health-care budget for diseases that are very well known and by and large behavioral." That is, they're sick because of how they choose to live their lives, not because of environmental or genetic factors beyond their control. Continued Levey: "Even as far back as when I was in medical school" -- he enrolled at Harvard in 1955 -- "many articles demonstrated that 80% of the health-care budget was consumed by five behavioral issues."

Those five are smoking, drinking, eating, and stress, and not enough exercise.

That leads me to two conclusions. National (socialized) health care is even more preposterous than I thought, as it means you have to pay for other people's vices. Second, Free Will is not all it's cracked up to be.

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