Health care coverage is essential for people in all walks of life, regardless of who you are and where you come from. You only live once and need to look after yourself when you are here. You should explore all options before settling on the best policy, and you should be satisfied that it is the best one for you. Make sure that you read all of the small print before you finally decide on a policy because it is often the terms and conditions that makes the policy effective for the individual.Health Care Coverage And CostThe golden rule of choosing health care coverage is not choosing the cheapest policy on cost alone. Cheap health care coverage is usually very poor and you generally tend to get what you pay for. The health care coverage company will happily take your money and give you absolutely no protection against illness and disease should you fall victim to either one of them. You will end up with bills to pay that can mount up to hundreds, with absolutely no way of claiming the money back.You must consider health care coverage in terms of your own needs and aim to purchase health care coverage from a company that has a solid reputation and is well known for its excellent health care. If the only reason that you go for a specific health care insurance s because of the price then you should seriously consider your options and shop around for good deals from trusted health care coverage companies.The health care coverage that you choose should be comprehensive and cover all eventualities instead of providing you with only basic health care or coverage that only covers the most unlikely of events. There are policies that are both of the previous and they are usually presented at the most attractive prices that you have ever seen. However, the terms and conditions of every policy will reveal the loopholes and the pitfalls that you will be faced with should anything happen.Health care coverage is extremely important to every individual and should be chosen to suit your individual circumstances. There are health care policies that can be tailored to individual, maternity, short-term, travel and self-employed coverage. When you look at the options, you will be stumped as to know where to begin. You health care coverage premium will all depend on which option you choose, but you can always alter your cover as and when necessary.Medical costs can be extremely high in certain circumstances, but you need to have health care coverage to ensure that you do not have to cover those costs on your own. You can get health care coverage to suit your needs, you are one step closer to a better quality of life.

Being unable to keep up with your home or having difficulty with everyday tasks such as taking a shower or getting dressed is frustrating. Realizing you cannot do it on your own anymore can be scary; however, you are not alone.There is no shame in needing and asking for help. That is why senior assisted living programs and home health assistance programs are available. Choosing a senior assisted living or home health care program doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It is important to be informed and aware of all senior health care options. When you have all the facts, it is much easier to make the decision that will best suit your needs.Home health care allows you to remain in your home while a nurse/aid visits to help you with any daily activities you would normally struggle with on your own. This can mean anything from bathing to administering medications to preparing meals. Normally, people who choose home health care are more enabled than people who choose a senior assisted living program. A senior living program combines housing with assistance for everyday life activities.If you find yourself unsure of which one to choose, it is wise to read the checklist below to help you decide what health care assistance program is right for you.Mobility – Do you find it difficult or painful to get out of bed in order to begin your daily activities? Do you find it difficult to move around your home? Are you unable to drive or with no reliable transportation to get groceries or go to appointments? It’s important to understand that a senior help living community provides reliable transportation for any needed trips. Assisted living also provides services such as housework, cleaning, and laundry, so you don’t have to worry about your limited mobility.Personal Care – Are simple tasks such as eating or dressing yourself too difficult due to pain or illness? Can you accomplish some life tasks, but not others? Home care is not 24/7, but it can be arranged to suit your needs at the times you need them. If you are totally unable to take care of yourself or your home, an assisted living program with its 24/7 available assistance might be a better choice.Medical Issues – Do you suffer from an illness or disease that limits what you can and cannot do? Is it hard for you to administer your medication on your own? A home health care nurse/aid can help you administer medication at your home. An assisted living program can help with any medical treatment required and are on call 24/7.By knowing the answer to these questions, you will better understand your wants and needs. Talk to your health care provider about these topics, especially if you answered “yes” to any of the questions above. Home health care and senior assisted living programs invest in your safety and satisfaction. There are over 31,000 senior assisted living programs nationwide. You are not alone.

First, let’s get a little historical perspective on American health care. To do that, let’s turn to the American civil war era. In that war, dated tactics and the carnage inflicted by modern weapons of the era combined to cause terrible results. Most of the deaths on both sides of that war were not the result of actual combat but to what happened after a battlefield wound was inflicted. To begin with, evacuation of the wounded moved at a snail’s pace in most instances causing severe delays in treatment of the wounded. Secondly, most wounds were subjected to wound related surgeries and amputations and this often resulted in massive infection. So you might survive a battle wound only to die at the hands of medical care providers whose good intentioned interventions were often quite lethal. High death tolls can also be ascribed to everyday sicknesses and diseases in a time when no antibiotics existed. In total something like 600,000 deaths occurred from all causes, over 2% of the U.S. population at the time!Let’s skip to the first half of the 20th century for some additional perspective and to bring us up to more modern times. After the civil war there were steady improvements in American medicine in both the understanding and treatment of certain diseases, new surgical techniques and in physician education and training. But for the most part the best that doctors could offer their patients was a “wait and see” approach. Medicine could handle bone fractures and perform risky surgeries and the like (now increasingly practiced in sterile surgical environments) but medicines were not yet available to handle serious illnesses. The majority of deaths remained the result of untreatable conditions such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, scarlet fever and measles and/or related complications. Doctors were increasingly aware of heart and vascular conditions, and cancer but they had almost nothing with which to treat these conditions.This very basic understanding of American medical history helps us to understand that until quite recently (around the 1950′s) we had virtually no technologies with which to treat serious or even minor ailments. Nothing to treat you with means that visits to the doctor if at all were relegated to emergencies so in that scenario costs were obviously minuscule. A second factor that has become a key driver of today’s health care costs is that medical treatments that were provided were paid for out-of-pocket. There was no health insurance and certainly not health insurance paid by someone else like an employer. Costs were the responsibility of the individual and perhaps a few charities that among other things supported charity hospitals for the poor and destitute.What does health care insurance have to do with health care costs? Its impact on health care costs is enormous. When health insurance for individuals and families emerged as a means for corporations to escape wage freezes and to attract and retain employees after World War II, almost overnight there was a great pool of money available for health care. Money, as a result of the availability of billions of dollars from health insurance pools, encouraged an innovative America to increase medical research efforts. As more and more Americans became insured not only through private, employer sponsored health insurance but through increased government funding that created Medicare, Medicaid and expanded veteran health care benefits, finding a cure for almost anything has become very lucrative. This is also the primary reason for the vast array of treatments we have available today. I do not wish to convey that this is a bad thing. Think of the tens of millions of lives that have been saved, extended and made more productive as a result. But with a funding source grown to its current magnitude (hundreds of billions of dollars annually) upward pressure on health care costs are inevitable. Doctor’s offer and most of us demand and get access to the latest available health care technology, pharmaceuticals and surgical interventions. So there is more health care to spend our money on and until very recently most of us were insured and the costs were largely covered by a third-party (government, employers). This is the “perfect storm” for higher and higher health care costs and by and large, the storm is intensifying.At this point, let’s turn to a key question. Is the current trajectory of U.S. health care spending sustainable? Can America maintain its world competitiveness when 16%, heading for 20% of our gross national product is being spent on health care? What are the other industrialized countries spending on health care and is it even close to these numbers? Add politics and an election year and the whole issue gets badly muddled and misrepresented.I believe that we need a revolutionary change in the way we think about health care, its availability, its costs and who pays for it. And if you think I am about to say we should arbitrarily and drastically reduce spending on health care you would be wrong. Here it is fellow citizens – health care spending needs to be preserved and protected for those who need it. And to free up these dollars those of us who don’t need it or can delay it or avoid it need to act. First, we need to convince our politicians that this country needs sustained public education with regard to the value of preventive health strategies. This should be a top priority and it has worked to reduce the number of U.S. smokers for example. If prevention were to take hold, it is reasonable to assume that those needing health care for the myriad of life style engendered chronic diseases would decrease dramatically. Millions of Americans are experiencing these diseases far earlier than in decades past and much of this is due to poor life style choices. This change alone would free up plenty of money to handle the health care costs of those in dire need of treatment, whether due to an acute emergency or chronic condition.Let’s go deeper on the first issue. Most of us refuse do something about implementing basic wellness strategies into our daily lives. We don’t exercise but we offer a lot of excuses. We don’t eat right but we offer a lot of excuses. We smoke and/or drink alcohol to excess and we offer a lot of excuses as to why we can’t do anything about it. We don’t take advantage of preventive health check-ups that look at blood pressure, cholesterol readings and body weight but we offer a lot of excuses. In short we neglect these things and the result is that we succumb much earlier than necessary to chronic diseases like heart problems, diabetes and high blood pressure. We wind up accessing doctors for these and more routine matters because “health care is there” and somehow we think we have no responsibility for reducing our demand on it.It is difficult for us to listen to these truths but easy to blame the sick. Maybe they should take better care of themselves! Well, that might be true or maybe they have a genetic condition and they have become among the unfortunate through absolutely no fault of their own. But the point is that you and I can implement personalized preventive disease measures as a way of dramatically improving health care access for others while reducing its costs. It is far better to be productive by doing something we can control then shifting the blame.There are a huge number of free web sites available that can steer us to a more healthful life style. “Google” “preventive health care strategies”, look up your local hospital’s web site and you will find more than enough help to get you started. Let’s go America – we can do this!