Category Archive: Article Summary

Private health insurers have contributed nothing of value to the American healthcare system

SUMMARY: Los Angeles Times…”The most perplexing aspect of our current debate over healthcare and health coverage is the notion that Americans love their health insurance companies. The truth is that private health insurers have contributed nothing of value to the American healthcare system. Instead, they have raised costs and created an entitled class of administrators and executives who are fighting for their livelihoods, using customers’ premium dollars to do so.” Ouch

Continue reading →

Stop blaming pharma for your bad habit​s

KEY SUMMARY: The idea that pharma “likes to keep people sick” is an excuse for poor lifestyle choices. The percentage of people who are overweight or obese soared from 22 percent in 1994 to 42 percent in 2016, nearly doubling. Obesity impacts where consumers spend their money. An individual with a body mass index (BMI) that’s considered “obese” spends 42 percent more on direct health care costs than adults who are a healthy weight.

Continue reading →

Cancer death rates declining but

  • Death rates from cancer declined by 19%. Death rates from heart disease declined by 22% until 2011 but increased by 4% from then to 2017.
  • Cancer was still the major killer and had a higher death rate compared to heart disease. In fact, the cancer mortality rate in 2017 was nearly 40% higher than that for heart disease.
  • There is now strong evidence excessive weight is the cause of at least 12 cancers, five more than when the last WCRF recommendations were published in 2007.
  • Obesity is likely to overtake smoking as the “number one risk factor for cancer” within decades.
Continue reading →