We can personally do many things to help health care reform

Down in Washington D.C. the bureaucrats are trying to draft a document that will take care of all of us from cradle to grave. The original Constitution was written on a just a few pieces of paper but we didn’t have as many lawyers then, and so the first draft of this proposed legislation is 1990 pages.

Problem is, no government programs or entitlements will resolve the problems and there is not enough disposable income in this country to cover the true cost of health care.

Until the medical community changes the way it operates (pun intended), and until people develop a healthier lifestyle, we will never be able to control health care costs.

Dr. Marc Pietropaoli, who founded Victory Sports Medicine in Skaneateles, is one of a new breed of doctor and surgeon who someday might change the way the medical profession functions in America. Example; six years ago I fell down the stairs and tore my quadriceps tendons. It immobilized me and “Dr P.” scheduled surgery. The night before going under the knife Doctor P. called me to say; “I have been studying your MRI and believe you can recover the use of your knee without surgery. The therapy will be long and arduous but I know you have the discipline to do it.”

Today my knee is functional and pain-free.

“Dr P.” employs a conservative approach to medicine, which includes doctor, therapist and patient. Consequently, he operates on about 10 percent of his patients while the average orthopedic surgeon operates on about half of their patients.

Recently, I asked Dr. P. what he thought about the proposed government health care reform legislation. He answered, “If we wish to reduce the cost of health care, first we must reform medical practice to include preventive medicine, healthier lifestyles and therapy. The ever-increasing cost of obesity and smoking will cause medical expenses to rise faster than any proposed saving in medical care itself. Beyond all of this, we need to overhaul the health care system. Doctors are not adequately compensated for consultations on preventive medicine, healthy diet, exercise or therapy programs. Most doctors are trained and paid to operate, and when a scalpel is the prime tool — everything looks like it needs an incision.”

Nearly one third of all men, women and children in America are overweight or obese, and the percentage is rising at an alarming rate. Obesity in children almost guarantees the development of diabetes and heart disease in later life. Furthermore, obesity has reached epidemic proportions in our country. Coming back from a recent trip to Europe, we saw more fat people at Kennedy airport than we saw for three weeks in Europe.

There were 440,000 deaths last year from smoking. This is merely the tip of the iceberg from a health care cost standpoint. Smoking triggers cancer, diabetes, heart disease and COPD (emphysema).

I saw my father, sister and aunt die, gasping for breath, from emphysema — it’s not pretty.

A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day has an 80 percent chance of dying from cancer or the other related diseases. They can almost automatically deduct at least 12 years from their life.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that less than 10 percent of all students eat a balanced diet. Families no longer eat together where mother can prepare a nourishing meal. Fifty percent of all meals are eaten outside the home, usually in fast-food emporiums like McDonalds, which will gladly sell you a ‘super-sized’ burger and fries just dripping with fat.

Oh, and hardly anyone gets any exercise — too busy chasing the American Dream.

All-in-all we have become a nation of fat, lazy people looking to the government to give us the good life. If only we could afford it.