How does adequate finance effect your health and wellbeing?

Answer 1

Let me count the ways :} In today's era of super-high priced medicine, the simple fact is that, in the US, many folks avoid tending to mental and physical health issues due to simple inability to pay. This is also true in different ways in countries that offer socialized medicine in that not all maladies are covered, and of those that are, they are triaged, so it's not uncommon to hear that a patient requiring a mamogram may not receive one for months, as more critical cases get priority. Pay for it yourself, and this delay goes away. An example: The Menningers -- Sigmund Freud's disciples -- performed a study many years ago that concluded that paranoid schizophrenia was actually a relatively mild disorder. This was pretty shocking news to everyone, as up until then, it was consideed a debilitating problem, not uncommonly involving intense mental health care as well as occassional invovlement with law enforcement. Menningers' work however was impeccable. The only issue was that, due to the Menningers' notoriety and economic class of patients they were able to attract, the median income for the patient base was $4m per annum (this was some years ago so it's more like 15m would be today -- or more). It turns out these patients were able to develop sufficient infrastructure within their lives (live-in caregivers and assistants; limited non-mandatory contact with the public, etc.) so that this was -- for them -- a comparatively mild condition. One could say their financing was adequate :} The problem comes down to one of agendae. Quite understandably, insurance companies are dedicated to profit; socialized medical groups are aimed at the overall well-being of the society at large -- and your agenda is your own health. No matter how well meaning everyone invovled may be, there's no way these agendae completely coincide. So -- bottom line -- the more your financing, the more your agenda will prevail, and the better health and wellbeing you can statisically expect.